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LETTERS 



LONDON "TIMES, 



NEW YORK 



u 



COURIER AND INQUIRER." 



BY A •"STATES"'-MAN. 

C A H 



BOSTON: 

BAZIN k CHANDLER, PRINTERS, 37 CORNHILL. 

1857. 



,c 



LETTERS 
DEDICATED 

TO 



1857. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTERS TO THE "LONDON TIMES.' 



LETTER I. 

PAGE. 

Resources and Debts of the United States, 9 

LETTER II. 
Mississippi Bonds and Exchequer Bills, 15 

LETTER IH. 
Corn and Free Trade, 18 

LETTER IV. 
Exchequer Bills, 20 

LETTER V. 
President Polk's Policy, 22 

LETTER VI. 
President Polk's Message, 25 

LETTER VII. 
Remonstrance and Defence, 29 

LETTER VIII. 
Strength and Consistency of the United States' Government,. . . .34 

LETTER IX. 
Insolvent States of America, 38 

LETTER X. 
Mr. Webster and Mr. Dallas, 42 

LETTER XL 
Defence of the Mexican War, 46 

LETTER XII. 
The delinquent States of America, 48 



VI. CONTENTS. 

LETTER XIII. 
English and French Sympathies, 5i. 

LETTER XIV. 
The Spanish Marriages, 56 

LETTER XV. 
To Lord Palmerston, 59 

LETTER XVI. 
Defence of the preceding Letter 62 

LETTER XVII. 
Expulsion of the National Assembly foretold, 67 

LETTER XVIII. 
Men and Means wanted to make a Republic in France, 71 

LETTER XIX. 
Suppression of National Work-shops, 75 

LETTER XX. 
The French Republic, 77 

LETTER XXI. 

The French Republic, 81 

LETTER XXII. 
Louis Napoleon, his Family and the French Generals, 84 

LETTER XXIII. 
The State of Paris 92 

LETTER XXIV. 
M. Thiers and his Political Economy, 94 

LETTER XXV. 
The State of France, 96 

LETTER XXVI. 
The two Republics — France and the United States, 99 

LETTER XXVII. 
Louis Napoleon's Chances, 104 

LETTER XXVIII. 
To the Prince President, 107 

LETTER XXIX. 
The Condition of Parties in France, Ill 

LETTER XXX. 
The Presidency of France, 115 



CONTENTS. Vll. 

LETTER XXXI. 
The French President, 121 

LETTER XXXII. 

Cuba and the United States, 125 

f LETTER XXXIII. 

Slavery in the United States, 130 

LETTER XXXIV. 
Slavery in the United States, 136 

LETTER XXXV. 
Russia and the Allies, 133 

LETTER XXXVI. 
Slavery in the United States, 143 

LETTER XXXVII. 
Russia and the United States, 147 

LETTER XXXVIII. 
Great Britain and the United States, 152 

LETTER XXXIX. 

The United States, 155 

LETTER XL. 
Anglo-American Relations and Mr. Crampton, 161 



LETTERS TO THE NEW YORK "COURIER AND ENQUIRER." 

LETTER I. 
The Spanish Marriages, 165 

LETTER II. 
The City of Cracow, 169 

LETTER III. 
An American in Europe, and the State of Europe, 173 

LETTER IV. 
King Louis Philippe's Speech, 178 

LETTER V. 
Queen Victoria's Speech, 180 



Vlll. CONTENTS. 

LETTER VI. 
Prussia — Famine — Free-Trade, 184 

LETTER VII. 
Fast-Day in England. France — Spain — Portugal, 188 

LETTER VEIL 
Aspect of Paris after the Revolution of 1848, 191 

LETTER IX. 
The Revolution of February, 1848, 195 

LETTER X. 
" May 15th, 1848 " 199 

LETTER XL 
The Troubled State of France, 203 

LETTER XH. 
National Work-shops, 207 

LETTER XIII. 
Timidity and Weakness of the National Assembly, 210 

LETTER XIV. 
The " Four Days of June " and the Provisional Government, .... 2 12 

LETTER XV. 
The Great Movement in Europe, 214 

LETTER XVI. 
France in a State of Transition, 217 

LETTER XVII. 
The Republic near its End, 219 

LETTER XVIII. 
The Internal Administration of France, 221 

LETTER XIX. 
What can be substituted for the Republic ? 224 

LETTER XX. 
The Coup d'Etat of December 2d, 229 

LETTER XXI. 
Will Mankind go backwards ? 252 

LETTER XXII. 
The " Value of the Union," 255 



LETTERS 



'LONDON TIMES." 



LETTER I. 



It is frequently remarked by English writers, that the inhab- 
itants of the United States " hate them," and would on the 
slightest provocation, or with no provocation at all, be glad to 
rush into a senseless war. This is not true, but it is so gener- 
ally believed by them, that a very short time since, I was re- 
quested to write a letter, demonstrating the contrary, to be 
put into the hands of one of the leading men in your coun- 
try.* We do not hate you, but all the actual wrongs you 
could heap upon us would hardly stir up such bitter blood as 
the venomous outpourings of the Quarterly Revieiu and other 
periodicals have done. Should you not rather seek for good 
than for evil in those of your own blood, and have you not 
much more to lose than to gain by exciting our evil passions, 
and by keeping us just at that point of irritation where you 
yourselves ought to be answerable for any act on our part 
which may eventuate in war? 

*Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst 



10 



I am a man of peace, and I cannot but think that the re- 
sponsibility of those who strive to set brethren at strife, is 
awful in the extreme. If, therefore, my poor persuasion can 
induce you or others to put less gall into your anathemas 
against my country, if not for our sakes and our children's 
sake, then for the sake of human happiness and civilization, 
endeavor to preserve that peace which God loves and man 
should not despise. 

In order to preserve it between two powerful nations, it is 
of some consequence that their respective resources be not 
mutually undervalued. I admit that my countrymen, to judge 
from their frequent self-glorification, are either stupidly igno- 
rant of, or grossly indifferent to, the immense numerical supe- 
riority of your war marine over ours ; but, on the other hand, 
our own means of annoyance in case of hostilities are vastly 
underrated by you. It is thought in England, because our 
public ships are not as one in ten to yours, that therefore our 
mercantile marine might be swept from the ocean, while yours 
remained almost unharmed. But you well know that a lan- 
cet can let life out as surely as a broadsword, and it needs no 
ghost of rich Indiamen, long sunk, to tell many a ruined fam- 
ily that a paltry privateer can do the work of destruction as 
effectually as the mightiest man-of-war with its hundred can- 
nons. And, taking into consideration the myriads of private 
armed vessels which would swarm from all our ports in spite 
of blockades, and the immense extent of your commerce, con- 
siderably greater than ours, I hazard nothing in declaring, if 
war should come, that, ship for ship and man for man, we 
should have no reason to fear the last " dead reckoning. " 

In your leading article of the 30th ult. you say, that " the 
effects of a state of war would be equally injurious to the in- 
terests and to the liberties of the (American) commonwealth." 
To the interests, yes ! but only temporarily and partially. 



11 



Temporarily, because the States arc yet too young to feel for 
any length of time the effects of a blow, however heavy, and 
are possessed in a rare degree of that elasticity which youth 
alone possesses. 

Were you to raze every town on our seaboai'd, (a thing im- 
possible, as New York and Boston, not to mention other ports? 
I know, are so strongly fortified that no enemy could enter 
them,) but for the sake of argument, were you to give our 
cities to the flames and our ships to the waves, do you think 
the effects would be so durable as in an older country suffer- 
ing under a like calamity ? Do you believe that, a few years 
after earth's direst curse had passed, a vestige of it would re- 
main ? — that a people who, in less than the ordinary dura- 
tion of human life, have turned thousands of barren spots in- 
to habitations which the heart of man delights in, would allow 
a second sun to shine upon the encumbered streets where 
their infant steps first trod ? — or, that those who within the 
memory of middle age have distanced most competitors in the 
commercial race, and are now close upon the heels of the 
merchant princes of their parent isle, would leave their tim- 
ber, their hemp, and their iron, for a single hour, while they 
straightened their backs beneath the blow that had bent 
them ? No, Sir ! The injuries to our interests would be but 
the history of a day. A young man can lose with impunity 
a pound of blood, while a single ounce from the veins of an 
old one, like the last ounce upon the camel's back, will kill. 

Nor, while the storm lasted would its effects be more than 
partial. You seem to forget that foreign sources of luxuries 
and necessaries once shut up, our manufactures, no longer in 
a rude state, as at the commencement of the last war, would 
be pushed into more dangerous competition with your own — 
an affair of life and death to no small portion of your popula- 
tion, but of wealth incalculable to millions of ours. 



12 



I have not the presumption to crowd your columns, even if 
permitted, with reasons why I think you are mistaken in sup- 
posing that our "liberties, too, would suffer," and will mere- 
ly say, if you mean our liberties in relation to our own rulers, 
that they are secured to us not by traditions, nor precedents, 
nor dicta, but by a written Constitution, which, though, from 
time to time, it may be violated by ignorant or rash or vicious 
men, can never be systematically perverted to private ends, 
because the people in their general intelligence know too well 
its value to let it be lost. 

If, however, you mean our liberties as they relate to for- 
eign nations, ask, I pray you, the first American you encoun- 
ter, no matter of what party or of what politics, and he will tell 
you that at the least sign of war all the States would join 
with one accord, regardless of the justice of the cause, and 
defer till a more convenient season the discussion of their local 
animosities. You would learn, moreover, that whenever an 
anti-war cry has arisen in the midst of hostilities, it has been 
as instantly stilled by the univerr al voice of the people. So 
far, indeed, is it from being believed among us that war would 
endanger the Confederation, that not a few are heard openly 
to express the opinion that if it were to come every twenty 
years, it would serve to bind us more closely together, to knit 
up our ravelled sympathies, somewhat damaged by our ever 
occurring elections, and to open our eyes to the value of the 
Union. Some, in their fear of a separation, even pray for a 
national debt. But, for my own part, I am firmly convinced 
there is not a cabin on the remotest skirts of our borders, nor 
a dwelling in our most populous cities, where the necessity of 
union requires to be taught by any such extraordinary means 
as these. 

With respect to the Oregon dispute, I think with you, that 
the sooner it is settled the better will it be for all honest men 



18 



in both countries, though it may disappoint a host of army- 
contractors, speculators, and adventurers, greedy for their prey; 
I agree with you, too, in the opinion, that a refusal to sub- 
mit one's claims to arbitration, when negotiation fads, is prima 
facie evidence against the party so refusing. But has ne- 
gotiation failed ? I believe not, and I have just learned from 
a most intelligent source that there are yet good grounds for 
trusting that it will not. For this reason I do not, like you, 
" ground all hopes of a settlement on arbitration, " though, as 
a dernier ressort, I can conceive of nothing more desirable on 
the score of interest or of honor, especially where territory is 
concerned ; and, notwithstanding a prevailing notion among 
my countrymen that their claims, being the claims of republi- 
cans, would not stand a fair chance beside those of England if 
submitted to the award of a crowned King, I am quite sure, 
could any thing like unfairness enter into the decision, that 
England herself — rich and powerful England, the object of 
envy to the European world, would be the more likely vic- 
tim. 

Your correspondent " A. B. " asks, " If the degradation of 
the Republic " (a thing taken for granted) " is not caused by 
the conduct of the Americans themselves, who by deliberate 
and public frauds, have excluded themselves from the commu- 
nity of civilization ?" and gives as- a reason for the affirma- 
tive of the proposition, an answer which would raise a smile, 
were it not for the sympathy one feels for the unfortunate. 
He says that in 1839, he loaned a sum of money to one of our 
States, which in 1845, it cannot or will not repay. So then, 
because Illinois, an individual of our vast Confederation, rash- 
ly, but not in bad faith for aught that appears, made to 
" A. B. " a promise six years ago which she cannot now re- 
deem, (for, be it remarked, her willingness to pay has always 
been manifest), our Republic, forsooth, is " degraded " and 



14 



we, in the mass, as under an excommunication of old, are 
" excluded from the community of civilization. " Verily, 
even if Illinois were as bad as " A. B. " would make her, it 
is hard that all our teeth should he set on edge for sour 
grapes, which others — not " our fathers " — Lave eaten. 

But let us put the case more strongly than " A. B. " has 
done. Not Illinois alone, hut nearly one half of our States 
are, as every body knows, in the same predicament, with one 
exception, which I will presently notice, They borrowed 
money, meaning and expecting to repay it, and they cannot 
at present. This is the " head and front of their offence, no 
more. " Their liability they never denied, and even if they 
had, I do not see how the Republic, the nation called the 
" United States, " should any more be degraded by the mis- 
conduct of some of its constituent parts, over whose money 
affairs it has no control, than England would be if several of 
its richest and most powerful corporations were to become 
fraudulently bankrupt. The government of the United States, 
which is the sole representative of the Republic at home or 
abroad, never pledged its faith for the States' individual sol- 
vency, nor did it ever plead unwillingness or inability to meet 
its own engagements. A truce, then, to such nonsense as 
" A. B. " in his angry mood puts forth. He is sore, and well 
he may be, after having so- foolishly squandered his money; 
for I can tell him that, had his means or his patience permit- 
ted it, if he had waited yet a. little, he would have received 
" his own with usury. " But angry as he is, even though it 
be against himself, it does seem to me that one " who once 
loved that land, " and therefore placed his money there rather 
than with " despotic Russia " or " drowsy Austria, " if influ- 
enced, as he says he was, by love for us and not for our high 
rate of interest, even under a still greater provocation, might 
have shown a more Christian, if not a more gentlemanly, spir- 



it, in his reproaches, especially as he is " unwilling to irritate 
a people sensitive to shame, hut dead to honor. " 

The State of Mississippi is the exception I above al- 
luded to. Strictly and technically speaking, she is not liable 
for that portion of her bonds which she has repudiated. A 
fraud was committed upon her in the negotiation of them, 
by persons for whose agency she was not accountable. But 
there is no doubt that in refusing to acknowledge her liability 
she has committed an enormous blunder — and a blunder I 
now find the more to be lamented, that it has enabled " A. B. " 
ex cathedra to declare that "he is as much startled on meet- 
ing an American in (his) ? society as to hear of Robert Ma- 
caire at Almack's. " 

Paris, Nov. 3, 1845. 



LETTER II . 

I should not reply to your correspondent, "X. X., " not 
even to point out his errors, were it not for the hope that the 
few lines I venture to intrude upon your indulgence, may 
reach, through your universal journal, the eyes of some of 
my countrymen at home. 

Though brief in his epistle, wherein I will strive to imitate 
him, he has had the misfortune to commit several slight mis- 
takes. I did not say that New York and Boston were " im- 
pregnable, " — a place to be impregnable must be able to defy 
attack both by land and by water, — but I said that the 
" ports of these two cities could not be entered by an ene- 
my, " and this I learned within three months upon the spot 
from the best engineer authority in the country. 

In comparing the Mississippi and Exchequer-bills cases to- 



16 



gether, a parallel is sought for where none can be found. In 
the former the now repudiated bonds, before the law which 
gave them being had been consummated in the manner pre- 
scribed by the constitution, and, moreover, contrary to the 
terms of that law, were thrown into the market by that " fit- 
test imp of fraud " knavishly self-christened " Bank of the 
United States, " whose rightful sponsor was Pennsylvania ; 
and, as law recognizes no such plea as ignorance, the deluded 
purchasers became the victims. But still I think that the 
State is in honor bound to pay them ; and I doubt not that eve- 
ry honest man amongst us blushes at its short-sighted political 
criminality. In the latter case — that of the Exchequer- 
bills — the English Government had not a peg to hang a 
doubt upon. Honor out of the question, not a single point of 
law, thanks to the Chancellor himself, could be urged in ex- 
tenuation. 

The amount of the Mississippi debt is not as " X. X. " sup- 
poses, 12,000,000 dollars, but, to be exact, only 7,600,000, of 
which 2,600,000, called the " Planter's Bank's bonds, " are 
acknowledged to be due, while 5,000,000, the " Union Bank's 
bonds," are repudiated; and by referring to my letter of the 
3d inst , it will be seen that I did not commit the blunder of 
speaking of the " whole debt as subject to a legal quibble. " 

In saying that the non-paying States, with one exception^ 
have never denied their liability, but merely declared their 
inability to fulfil their contracts, I adopted their universal 
plea of pauperism, without making it entirely my own. For 
I believe that certain of them, if they would put their shoul- 
ders to the wheel, could, without the aid of any Hercules, ex- 
tricate themselves from the mire, cleansed from the pollution 
which now covers them ; and, moreover, that could they feel 
a tithe of the shame which we, their countrymen abroad, do 
on their behalf, they would pay to the uttermost farthing, 



17 



though it left them as poor as the first tillers of their soil. 
But there are others, Illinois and Indiana, for example, which 
I know to be for the moment physically incapable of meeting 
their engagements. Would you, however, the English, with 
true wisdom throw open your ports, and allow their corn, 
their sole produce, to come in, whereby their railroads and 
canals, constructed as you say with British capital, would rise 
many fold in value, instead of asking, without receiving 
your due, you would reap a rich harvest from what is now 
but fallow ground. But, your rich landed aristocracy resist 
the repeal of the corn laws, though all wise men, and lovers 
of their country, with Sir Robert Peel at their head, see the 
necessity of it. He would lend head, hand, and heart to car- 
ry the measure to-morroiv, if he dared to do so. But though 
he " bide his time " believe me, he is not the man to shrink 
from cutting off even a right hand to save the whole body 
politic from what is akin to hell-fire. Would you but open 
your ports, the cry of " Oregon " would die in the distance. 

Abuse then, if you please, certain of our defaulting States 
— abuse them as much as you think your interests will sanc- 
tion ; but when you assail a whole nation — a nation which 
one glories in calling his own, a nation, too, that may, per- 
haps, carry the fame of England to ages which will seek in 
vain for the landmarks of her glory, — at least be just in 
your wrath. 

Paris, Nov. 13, 1845. 



18 



LETTER III. 

I am far from being sure that any thing one of my coun- 
trymen can say will be of the slightest service to yours, how- 
ever true his words and however important the occasion, be- 
cause, as we all know, uncalled-for counsel, even from a 
friend, is generally contemned, and too often, even if fol- 
lowed, rendeied worse than useless by the drag-chain of un- 
willingness, which clogs its good intent. But, if it be lawful 
to be taught by an enemy, why should it be less so to receive 
useful suggestions from those who, after their own country, 
regard in the bottom of their hearts yours with a pride and 
an affection not unworthy of a fatherland ? 

From some of the late English papers, it seems to be a 
general impression that the American supply of wheat but 
little exceeds the home consumption, and that therefore it 
would avail ycu nothing to open your ports and let it come in 
on reasonable and certain conditions. Assuming, without ad- 
mitting, this to be true, there is no intelligent countryman of 
mine but will tell you, that with trade less shackled than it 
is, our labor being free from -every municipal vexation, a de- 
mand, however great, upon an almost boundless territory, a 
grateful soil, and an industrious people, could never be made 
in vain. Whence comes it that we have not more wheat if, 
after satisfying our own wants, only little remains for expor- 
tation, — we who, by every law that can apply to the case, 
are pre-eminently an agricultural people, and would have 
willingly kept, in the words of Jefferson, our workshops in 
Europe for ever, had you not forced us by your high-pressure 
policy to become manufacturers ourselves ? It is because we 
have too much of your own calculating Saxon blood in our 
veins, not rendered more sluggish by a burning sun, to waste 



19 



our strength in sowing where we cannot reap an ample fold. 
It is because we find it more profitable to raise tobacco, cot- 
ton, rice, and Indian corn — the last in such abundance that 
neither man nor beast can need — than to fill our barns and 
our ware-houses with that whose sale depends upon a scale 
so barometrically slippery that we dare not trust ourselves to 
its sliding mercies. 

"Were you to set a moderate and fixed duty on corn, (and 
what moment like the present to do it, when the American 
Government, almost beyond a doubt, will in a few months re- 
duce their own tariff to 20 per cent, ad valorem) ? the cry of 
starvation would soon become as strange to your ears as it is 
to ours ; your manufacturers in their turn would permanently 
enjoy the fruits of your wisdom, and the moral effect on the 
American States would be almost incalculable. They would 
see at once that their pecuniary interests imperatively dictat- 
ed an amicable settlement of every disputed question, and 
the thing would be done. Then, where one bushel of wheat 
is now raised by us there would be one hundred, and, if that 
did not suffice, more would be forthcoming. Indian corn, 
which under our summer sky grows, as it were, spontane- 
ously, would fill up any deficiency at home, and that without 
hardship even to the poor, if poverty can be said to exist 
where alms are never asked, except by the wandering emi- 
grant from Europe's overcrowded shores. Even at our rich- 
est tables the hot gold colored maize-cake at all times, and 
the luscious green corn in its season, have, like our crystal- 
ice amidst summer's parching heats, ceased to be luxuries, — 
they have become the necessaries of life. 

There being, as you are aware, no impertinent legal inter- 
ference in the cultivation of our lands, all we want is a market 
in England that can be relied upon, and thousands of acres, 
now producing the " filthy weed, " which neither feeds the 



20 



hungry nor clothes the naked, would be devoted to supplying 
the real necessities of man, and thousands upon thousands, 
now lying in sterile virginity beneath the wasted influences of 
a genial heaven, would not send forth a single leaf that did 
not tell in living characters of man's good deeds and God's 
beneficence. 

Paris, Nov. 21, 1845. 



LETTER IV. 

Owing to the late arrival of the English mail yesterday, I 
did not see " X. X.'s " letter in your number of the 20th, till 
the hour was passed for answering it. And now that I send 
a reply on a subject not germane to any other either of imme- 
diate consideration or present interest, I would respectfully 
leave to your discretion whether to publish it or to forward it 
to his address. 

He seems anxious to know of me, " if the State of Missis- 
sippi did or did not receive the proceeds arising from their now 
repudiated bonds?" To the best of my belief, if she did not 
actually receive them, which I have been assured is the fact, 
she profited by them directly or indirectly; and it is my 
conviction, therefore, that, though she might by some techni- 
cality escape in a court of law, in no court of equity or of 
honor could she fail to be condemned. After this I need not 
add that I believe there can be no half-way house between 
right and wrong, and that dishonesty is an unprofitable arti- 
cle of traffic, which will return to " plague its inventors. " 
He then, with just feelings of pride, demands if his country- 
men " urged legal objections to the payment of the forged 
Exchequer-bills ?" 1 am not aware that they ever did. But, 



21 



whether they did or not, what law and honesty and honor dic- 
tated, that they performed. 

When one quotes, the least that can be done is to quote 
correctly. Your correspondent gravely puts these words into 
my last letter but one, which I search for in vain : — " The 
Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that we (the English) 
were legally bound to pay the forged bills. " "Without citing 
any authority, it was my own assertion that "you had not a 
peg to hang a (legal) doubt upon, thanks to the- Chancellor 
himself. " Nor had you, notwithstanding the pretence that 
" the law did not require the bills to be paid ;" for, begging 
"X. X.'s" pardon, the law did require them to be paid, just 
as it requires the notes of a bank to be paid, whose president, 
recklessly signing, as did the Chancellor, in blank, all the pa- 
per which his villainous underlings may see fit to present, is 
made the unwitting instrument of a fraud which the proprie- 
tors of the institution must expiate. 

His argument, that, " if the law had required the payment 
of these bills, then all the parties holding them would have 
been entitled to payment," is bordering somewhat upon the 
absurd ; for in that case the fraudulent holders would have 
been able to avail themselves of their own wrong, which is 
contrary to one of the first maxims of English law. " The 
power to discriminate the circumstances under which they 
(the bills) were received," he says, " proves that theie was no 
legal right to payment. " It follows, then, by consequence, 
that had a legal right to payment existed, " the power to dis- 
criminate, " even in cases of palpable fraud, would have been 
wanting,' — a position which "X. X. " will hardly find tena- 
ble. 

He admits that you "enabled" — these are his own words 
— " your agent through neglect to deceive innocent holders 
of bills, " and if he knows any thing of the law cf his own 



22 



country, lie need no f , be told that in awarding civil damages — 
damages touching property alone, I mean, — it makes no dis- 
tinction between the commission of the malfeasant and the 
omission of the negligent ; and that the acts of an authorised 
agent, though his intent be fraudulent, so that he exceed not 
the letter of his instructions, are those of the principal. If, 
as he says, " no one can sue on a forged bill, " I can tell him 
that every innocent holder can sue on an Exchequer-bill, 
duly signed and executed, but fraudulently issued by its legal 
fabricators, and moreover, that he can recover upon it. 

He rather plaintively exclaims in conclusion, that " Eng- 
land gained nothing while Mississippi received the proceeds 
of her bonds. " - What then ? does he reckon for nothing the 
conservation of his country's honor, or does he envy Missis- 
sippi her paltry gains at the expense of her reputation ? 

Paris, Nov. 23, 1815. 



LETTER Y . 

We have the high authority of Dr. Johnson, if we needed 
any, that there is a world of moral difference between one 
who " lies unwittingly " and him who " knows that he lies ;" 
and, although I am far from thinking that some of your week- 
ly newspapers, deliberately, and with malice aforethought, 
put forth on American affairs what they know to be false, yet 
my conviction is that they commit an offence scarcely less 
heinous in foro conscientice, when like the stabber in the dark, 
carelessly searching for his foe, they let off their random shots 
in the direction of my country, wilfully reckless whether they 
" hit or miss. " 



23 



They are " still harping on my daughter " I find — still 
fumbling at the Oregon question — at Mr. Polk and his pol- 
icy, like an ignorant machinist, with monkey-like mischiev- 
ousness, affecting to scrutinize what surpasses his powers of 
comprehension. According to them, Oregon is but a " quar- 
ry, " out of which our President's " temple of fame " is to be 
hewn, if England will only " stand like a sheep to be shorn, 
as did Mexico ; " Mr. Polk is a " villager who never wagged 
the tongue or wielded the pen ; " and his policy is to make a 
" hero of himself, " cost what it may to his country. 

Now, all this is doubtless very convenient to fill a column 
or two, which, it would not be consistent with a paper's 
healthy circulation to blacken every day with tamer stuff. It 
is " fun " too for the " groundlings, " though, like the ven- 
emous insect's sting to the hunted stag, it may help in a small 
way to hurry into death-breeding confusion the higher tiers of 
society. But, is it true ? Is it true that we are the arrogant 
swash-bucklers which they describe us to be ; that our Presi- 
dent is the god of his own imagination, in the " temple of 
whose fame " his country, if necessary, must be sacrificed ; 
and that his policy is war to the knife, unless that deity be pro- 
pitiated? I think not; and, if I be mistaken, then have these 
writers stumbled upon the truth in a most " miraculous man- 
ner." And I believe not, because their information can 
hardly equal in accuracy that which is within my reach, 
coming as it does from those who, with reason, speak as men, 
" having authority and not as the scribes." 

On the day of the arrival of the United States' mail by 
the last steamer, I received a communication from a gentle- 
man, inferior only to our Chief Magistrate in rank, and infe- 
rior to no one in honesty, to whom I had freely expressed 
opinions, held by me at a former period, in common with 
many others no better informed than myself, respecting the 



24 



apparently warlike disposition of our Cabinet, and its novel 
claim to the whole of a territory hitherto admitted, on all 
hands, to be a " debateable hind. " As he is of the Adminis- 
tration party, and a man incapable of wilfully deceiving any 
one, his words, though never intended for publication, may 
not, perhaps, be deemed unworthy of a place in your journal. 
'' Mark me, " was his reply, " whenever the President's mes- 
sage shall arrive in Europe, you and all men will clearly see 
that it is not we, but the English, who have been exacting and 
unreasonable ; that it is they who have always thrown obsta- 
cles in the way of an amicable settlement of our difficulties ; 
and that the justice of our cause will be made manifest to all 
the world, as well as the probity and courtesy with which it 
has been maintained ; and this will delight you. " And it did 
delight me; for though I dread an unrighteous war as much 
as any man, especially with England, from whom we have so 
much to apprehend, still, with our " quarrel just, " I enter- 
tain no fear as to the results, seeing that it would be a war 
not of party but of principle, and one which would enlist' the 
sympathies of not only all the American States, but of all the 
countries of Europe in our favor. 

It seems, too, that the proposition lately made by our Sec- 
retary of State, as a new basis to treat upon, was not a mere 
repetition of former offers, but that it comprised a concession 
ot greater extent than had ever been made by us before, and 
one quite sufficient for your Government at least to entertain, 
especially just at this moment, when it evidently cares much 
less about territory than it does about the national honor, sup- 
posed to beat stake. But Mr. Packenham did not consider it 
to be admissible, whereupon it was instantly withdrawn, much 
to the dissatisfaction, as I understand, of his Government, 
which is far from being pleased at his so abruptly closing a 
door which might have conducted to a quiet adjustment of a 



25 



difficult, and hitherto, in some respects, an ill-managed affair. 

" But I know not how the truth may be ; 
I tell the tale as 'twas told to me. " 

For I would carefully, and even conscientiously, avoid that 
presumptuous style of certain writers of the day, who seem 
to think, P Sir Oracle "-like, that when they " ope their 
mouths no dog must bark ;" while I will tell them, if they do 
not already know it, that even in the hands of a fool a fire- 
brand is a dangerous missile, which once thrown may not at 
will be gathered up again ; and that my countrymen in usurp- 
ing the soil of the red man, did not leave that peculiar attri- 
bute of his unappropriated, which never forgets or forgives an 
unprovoked and unexpiated injury. 

Paris, Dec. 10, 1845. 



LETTER VI . 

That " nothing good could come out of Nazareth, " was a 
no more self-evident proposition to the Jews of old, than that 
nothing but evil can spring from American parentage, is a 
matter of faith to certain countrymen of yours, who, I doubt 
not, had they flourished in the time of our Saviour, would 
have lived and died, in spite of miracles, the victims to their 
exaggerated self-esteem. And I verily believe, that, could 
the embodied spirit of Wisdom itself descend in the shape of 
an American Presidential Message, these carping gentry 
would contrive to pick a hole or make a rent in even such a 
" divine perfection, " while striving to tack on their churlish 
commentaries to its skirts. 

Two* of your leading journals — the one Whig, the other 

♦Chronicle and Standard of the 23d inst. 



26 

Conservative — in dealing with our President's late communi- 
cation to Congress, remind me strongly of a fellow I once saw 
cuffing a pugnacious mastiff with one Land, and holding out a 
tempting bone with the other — balancing between his hopes 
and his fears, and undecided as to the wisdom of coaxing or 
bullying the unmanageable brute. In like manner, and al- 
most in the same breath, they call his counsels " intemperate, 
insane, blustering and threatening gasconades, " and then 
throw him a Corn Law repeal sop to soothe what they are 
pleased to term " their most dangerous and impracticable op- 
ponent. " But in the midst of their hot though fluttering dis- 
pleasure, I must admit that they pay, however unintention- 
ally, the highest possible compliment to the " American peo- 
ple, who, " in their own words, " will sacrifice the passion 
nearest and dearest to their hearts, if they can thereby gain 
a truly national object. " This is indeed praise greater than 
we ever dared to covet for our "Anglo-Saxon character," 
though attended by the drawback, according to them, of that 
" character's being marked with degeneracy from the parent 
stock. " 

I have carefully read several times that portion of the mes- 
sage which relates to the Oregon territory, and I am con- 
strained in the spirit of fairness to declare that it appears to 
me manly, modest and firm, and not unbecoming the exalted 
station which, unsought for by him, its author now occupies. 
The first five paragraphs of it are taken up with a simple 
narrative of what had been done by his predecessors in office ; 
the sixth, with what were his convictions and consequent 
measures on assuming the responsibilities of the Chief Magis- 
tracy ; and the rest, with what he proposes to do, provided 
that it can be effected without violating, " even in spirit, " 
the mutual occupation convention, to which he almost rever- 
entially alludes no less than four times in tones of warning 



27 



too serious to be mistaken; He concludes this part of his 
subject by throwing himself "with deference" upon the wis- 
dom of Congress, whose suggestions will be met by him with 
" hearty concurrence. " 

Now, nothing can be gained but merited ill-will by at- 
tempting to. distort and vilify language like this; for even 
among foes, and much more between two nations bound by 
ties of blood and interest to friendship, honesty is the wiser 
policy ; and sure am I that these very writers themselves, 
would have been the first to twit, as crafty and pusillanimous, 
the man who could shrink from declaring and acting up to 
opinions, whether right or wrong in their eyes, which he once 
formally enunciated, and which, it is evident, he yet in all sin- 
cerity entertains. 

In your number of the 24th inst., though you courteously 
allow that the " President's style is unusually readable, sim- 
ple and clear," yet you find fault with him for "taking great 
credit to himself for having made an offer which he acknowl- 
edges to be less than what the British Government has re- 
peatedly declined. " But in my humble opinion, even with- 
out considering the high motives which induced him to pro- 
pose more liberal terms than he would have done had he had 
the initiation of the negotiation, he is fully entitled to take 
credit to himself for the offer, whatever it was, since it is now 
known to me, on still better authority than it was when I 
Avrote my letter of the 10th inst., that Mr. Pakenham rejected 
the said offer without consulting Lord Aberdeen, and received 
but niggard thanks from his employers for his injudicious pre- 
cipitation. 

Whatever may be Mr. Polk's sins of omission or commis- 
sion, it cannot be said that he has been other than frank in 
the exposition of his views and intentions ; nor can he or his 
countrymen, in their foreign relations, be accused of the least 



28 



tincture of cunning, but much rather of that rash disposition 
to "cut the knot" and "throw away the scabbard," per- 
chance before the sword be ready, which, if it gain not your 
love, must at least command your respect. Nor can it be pre- 
tended that he has curried favor with that Power whose 
creeping policy in the Texan affair, so signally defeated, has 
just received at his hands a rebuke, which it would feel the 
more keenly were it convicted, as I have been assured more 
than once that it well might be, of, while holding out the 
hand of good-fellowship to England, having attempted, at the 
time of the insurrection in the Canadian possessions, the 
same game which it had so successfully played at an earlier 
period in the history of the North American colonies. 

Notwithstanding all the magnificent promises made by the 
preachers of the entente cordiale, you will one day find that 
the French dread and dislike you, as much as you, in your 
secret souls, undervalue — I had almost said despised — them ; 
and whether their most wise Sovereign (who would sacrifice 
every thing to peace, save his own dynasty) live or die, you 
will learn at the eleventh hour, should a war arise between 
our two countries, that not even he, except at too dear a cost, 
could prevent them from rushing into it, to take vengeance on 
you for mortifications, under which they have never ceased to 
writhe. Do not build any hopes of sympathy from them on 
the shallow devices of the Guizot Administration ; for there 
is here as all the world knows, but one lord and master, who 
is Louis Philippe, with his velvet colored gauntlet ; and he 
said not long since to one of my countrymen in high station 
"Why do you not increase your navy? It is that to which 
you should direct your attention. And as to the Oregon ter- 
ritory, " he added, " the English might as well lay claim to 
New Orleans as to any part of it. " 

It is very convenient, doubtless, for the King and his 



29 



Prime Minister to play fast and loose between two parties, 
as did the rich land-owner and his heir-at-law in your civil 
commotions, to avoid a confiscation whichever side went to 
the wall ; but it is not less convenient, I apprehend, and quite 
as safe, for you to be confirmed, in what cannot but be your 
misgivings as to their double-dealing, by one who is upon the 
spot and a " looker on " in Paris. 
Paris, Dec. 29, 184j. 



LETTER VII. 

For weeks past, it has rejoiced me much to see that an hon- 
orable peace between your country and mine, has been the pro- 
fessed object of leading articles such as appear in your journal, 
and in no other ; but I am so fully aware that it needs not 
my poor testimony to procure their due praise for high talents? 
so nobly exercised in the noblest of all causes, that I would 
have remained silent, had it not been for the hope of being lis- 
tened to for a moment, while I remonstrate with you on the 
sudden change of sentiments manifested in your number of 
the 2Gth inst., wherein, having first discussed Mr. Paken- 
ham's proceedings at Washington, you indulge in one of your 
tirades of former days against us, with a gusto akin to that with 
which we return to our first love. Instead of maintaining 
your former high, but conciliatory tone — the offspring appa- 
rently of honest intention, and conscious strength, you descend 
to personalities, such as our " nasal jargon, bad grammar, 
and worse principle ; " and } r ou condescend to act the part 
of one, who, fearing that his dignity has been compromised in 
the eyes of an antagonist by too gentlemanly a bearing, with- 
out waiting the result, strives to redeem his imaginary error, 



30 



and to demonstrate that he was not under the influence of 
fear, by redoubling abuse once deliberately rejected as worse 
than useless. Why you rejected it I cannot say, unless it was 
that you perceived there was a certain sort of blood in our 
veins, which, though not English, is sure to boil at an insult, 
while it remains lukewarm at an injury ; nor can I tell 
why you did not persist in such a Avise rejection, when, to 
quote your own words, you knew that ' ; a spicy article in a 
newspaper is sufficient to kindle a flame, which the blood of 
thousands can alone quench," and must have known too, that 
such an effusion as yours might perchance furnish materials 
to the mischievous, wherewith to light a conflagration, by 
whose lingering embers ages to come would trace with shame 
and tears the blight upon civilization that it had left behind. 

Do you on reflection really believe that " the war policy 
against America would be supported by men of liberal views, 
of disciplined minds, and of intellects refined by thought into 
the most repulsive fastidiousness ?" * If you do, I pray God 

ANSWER OF THE TIMES. 

* We consider that the gist of the complaint, no less than the cour- 
teous tone of a letter addressed to us by a Citizen of the United 
States, demands from us a few words of explanation. He has taken 
umbrage at some expressions contained in our leading article of the 
26th ult., expressions which we think must have been severed from 
their context almost for the purpose of misconstruction, but which, if 
taken in conjunction with, and interpreted by it, cannot be pronounced 
intentionally offensive. 

It was our object to show that it would be no difficult matter to 
light the torch of a savage contest between the United Kingdom and 
the lyepublic of the United States. We did this by a reference to 
the passions and prejudices which influence different classes amongst 
ourselves. We know that it is a common thing for American 
rhetoricians to lay great stress on \ hat they imagine to be the repub- 
lican tendencies of our middle ranks, and the liberalism of our po- 
litical enthusiastics ; that the American war party reckon too much 
on 1 he inertness of our pacific, and the parsimony of our economical, le- 
gislators ; and that they are completely ignorant of the tone of feeling 
prevalent among the young and ardent members of our more educated 



31 



to save me from sucli self-delusion, and to protect the world 
from the effects of such "liberality, discipline, and refine- 
ment, " which if they exist except in fancy, must be the bas- 
tard produce of that " unnecessary luxury, a regal govern- 
ment, and that expensive metaphor, a crown;" and at the 
best can be but a poor set-off, however ready to leap to a 
bloody conclusion, against the decaying affections of the Irish 
people, and the decayed state of their sole means of subsist- 
ence. 

I have reason to believe, and my sources of information are 
not bad, that the English Government just at this moment is 
in the awkward predicament of a man, who, having made a 

orders. Knowing this, we thought it right that they should know it 
too ; we therefore cited in continuity the particular feelings and pre- 
judices which, whether reasonable or not, would actuate men of dif- 
ferent conditions in the contingency of an American Avar. Of these 
sentiments we spoke, and could speak, neither in terms of justification 
nor encouragement. We merely asserted their existence as a tact which 
ought to he known by those ready to rush into a hazardous struggle 
from a reliance on ill-founded premises. And if, in describing the 
particular bias of classes or persons, we used language likely to wound 
the pride of a kindred nation, we used it simply as an exponent of 
their feelings, such as they themselves would make use of; not as that 
which we would willingly suggest or unprovokedly adopt. We have 
too clear a perception of the miseries consequent upon any war, and 
too sincere a dread of those which might follow an American war, to 
add to the knotty difficulties of diplomacy the petty stings and excit- 
ing annoyances of newspaper abuse and scurrilous nicknames. But 
we do not think we are transgressing our public duty in communicat- 
ing to our opponents the sentiments of those with whose country they 
are at issue. Less baneful consequences are likely to flow from a 
consciousness of the spirit and determination with which Great Brit- 
ain would engage in a war, than from a pacific acquiescence in the 
delusive insinuations that her Ministry can be frightened, or her peo- 
ple bullied, into any dishonorable capitulation or any ignoble conces- 
sions. 

Having premised thus much in vindication of a course which has 
been misrepresented, and in explanation of phrases which, perhaps, 
ought to have been more minutely illustrated or more specifically ap- 
propriated at the time they were written, we may now repeat our 
expression of a hope that the great difference between the two coun- 
tries is capable of a peaceful and honorable adjustment. 



32 



claim in the dark upon a neighbor, in the beginning no better 
informed than himself as to their mutual rights, now that truth 
has fairly dawned upon both parties, finds it rather difficult to 
extricate himself with credit from the false position into 
which his unfounded, but not dishonest, pretensions have hur- 
ried him ; and that, if negotiations respecting the Oregon ter- 
ritory were now to be entered upon for the first time, a boun- 
dary line could be run as fast as it could be travelled over, 
and that, too, without the intervention of an umpire to de- 
cide, when the commissioners were not of accord. 

"Will you permit me to express my regret and astonish- 
ment, that a person of your far-reaching sagacity should join 
in O'Connell's peevish cry about slavery ? — that bane which 
the English themselves forced upon us years ago, in spite of 
our earnest i*emonstrance, and which they now revile us for 
without even suggesting an antidote for eradicating it from 
our Constitution. When the " Thirteen States " became a 
nation, it was by a compromise among conflicting interests, 
which, had it proved a failure, would have left them a set of 
disjointed links, and a scoff and a by-word for those who con- 
tend that man is unfitted for self-government. And the only 
means of avoiding so great a calamity — for calamity it 
would have been to the human race, notwithstanding the pas- 
sion of your countrymen for " expensive metaphors " — was 
to tolerate the curse which their English ancestors had be- 
queathed to them. To this end a solemn compact was en- 
tered into, that not the general, but the State governments 
should, within their several limits, have power to legislate on 
a subject so hostile, I admit, to the spirit of our institutions, 
and by this compact is the government of the United States 
still bound. Your would-be philanthropists had much bet- 
ter look to their own laborers than to our slaves, who are bet- 
ter fed and lodged than the white serf, their decrepit parents 



33 



and helpless children better cared for, and themselves better 
protected against the vicissitudes of life. Or, if they will 
meddle in a matter which they can nowise benefit — if they 
will persist in doing evil that good may come out of it, I 
would fain entreat them — I, who am from an Eastern State 
where there are no slaves, and look with undiluted disgust 
on slavery, whether it assume the shape of physical bondage, 
as with us, or of moral servitude, as with you — to propose one 
feasible scheme for ridding ourselves of the plague-spot, with- 
out ruining the land and its owners, and entailing worse than 
death on its black cultivators ; and if we do not adopt it 
without delay, then may they go on with their vituperations, 
and we will forever hold our peace. No one in his senses, 
I presume, would counsel the same experiment which you 
made in your West India Islands, even if it had not signally 
failed, as no two cases less parallel to each other could be 
found. 

You twit us, too, in the article above alluded to, with the 
administration among us of what is termed Lynch law, when 
such a thing is neither justified nor excused by any American, 
nor has ever had more than an occasional existence in distant 
and infant communities, where the arm of inclftate justice was 
too short to save the dearest of all relations from being vio- 
lated by the lusts and passions of lawless invaders. To charge 
us with being subject to such a monster, is as absurd as to 
call Englishmen assassins, because murder is rife in Ireland — 
a country on your very threshold, when compared to our 
western borders in relation to the Atlantic States, — and be- 
cause now and then a man is shot down at mid-day in the 
streets of London.* You judge and condemn a whole nation 
on the presentation of isolated facts, and yet you will not pur- 

* 7 ir Robert Peel's secretary, mistaken for the baronet himself, had, 
shortly before this was written, been assassinated in a crowded thoroughfare, 

2 



34 



chase a dwelling-house on the mere inspection of individual 
bricks. " Fair and softly go far," is a wise saying ; and if 
you are sincere, as I believe you to be, in your love of peace, 
you should recollect that rough grooming, where not the blood 
but the skin is thin, is apt to render the steed restive at times, 
and is always a dangerous experiment. 
Paris, Jan. 30, 1846. 



LETTER VIII. 

*Among other reasons for thinking our government " too 
feeble to restrain bad impulses, and our population too ex- 
citable to be conscious of consequences, " a " moonstruck 
madman's " speech, and the manner in which it was listened 
to in the United States House of Representatives, seem with 
you to rank among the foremost. Without stopping to inquire 
whether it is his " much learning that has made him mad," if 
Mr. Quincy Adams be really mad, (for learning, even if his 
wits be disordered, he possesses to a degree seldom equalled 
in Europe or America,) and without uttering a suspicion that 
the superstructure, reared on such a professedly crazy foun- 
dation, may be unsound, allow me to ask in what, and on what 
occasion, the general government at Washington has exhibit- 
ed feebleness, and wherein has our population betrayed an 
excitability which is regardless of consequences ? 

*The plain principle of audi alteram partem has induced us to publish 
a letter on the political institutions of the United States, which will he 
found in another place, over the signature of a "States-man." But 
without this, the letter itself has intrinsic merits, both of thought and 
style, which make it well deserving of a place in our columns. The 
writer has studied with effect the history of his country; and with no 
little art concentrates into one focus the scattered rays of light that 
shed a lustre upon the general government of the Union. — Times. 



35 



Since we came into being, which was but as yesterday in 
the history of nations, it can be said without a boast, that there 
is not a quarter of the globe that will not bear witness to the 
strength and energy of our Executive in its foreign relations. 
Were we not the first to refuse tribute to the Algerine, while 
all Europe was laying its black mail at his feet? Did we 
follow or lead in declaring and making the slave trade subject 
to the penalties of piracy ? — which was at least one step to- 
wards purgation from the black plague inherited from our 
ancestors. "Was our claim upon the kingdom of Naples for 
indemnification suffered to grow weak through age ? Had 
France any repose till the 25,000,000 of francs were paid? 
And, in these latter days, was not Texas annexed in spite of 
foreign interference ? 

But perhaps the feeble nature of our government developes 
itself only at home. Well, then, at home. Did it not quell a 
most portentous insurrection in Pennsylvania, and that, too, 
while its powers were in their infancy, without shedding a 
single drop of blood ? Did it not, in its full strength, stifle 
South Carolina's nullification scheme with a menace ? Did it 
not easily crush a monster bank conspiracy ? And finally, 
has it not recently, in scorn of domestic opposition, added a 
new territory to its own ? 

Should weakness in the art of defence ever be charged 
against it, the voices from English graves throughout the 
country, honored wherever found, would be far too many not 
to gainsay the slander. And if its power of offence be doubt- 
ed or forgotten, not the wide ocean alone, but your very chan- 
nels, whose waves almost kiss the lintels of your doors, could, 
if their records were not written in water, bear witness to its 
reality. The smoke, too, from many a richly Jaden convoy, 
was wafted too often, with a not sweet smelling savor, to the 
nostrils of their armed but too distant guardians, to convict 
the aggressors of inoffensiveness. 



36 



As to the excitability of a population, no part of which cor- 
responds to the English mob, or the French canaille, and to 
few of whose members the common rudiments of education 
are strange, it is vain to speculate on its evil results ; for in- 
telligence goes hand and hand with it, and the cool, calculat- 
ing spirit of my countrymen, is a sufficient guarantee that it 
will never lead them into danger. 

Tried by the Procrustean standard of Europe, I doubt not 
that we should often be pronounced out of measure, and that 
even upon the floor of Congress certain scenes might be cur- 
tailed to advantage ; but that " one branch of the most impor- 
tant legislative assembly of the new world, shoukHisten with 
interest and excitement " to our " lunatic " ex-President's 
most original exhibition, ought no more to raise your wonder, 
than that the House of Commons should be amused by a lu- 
dicrous description of a noble lord's coal-hole escapade,* or 
that it should now and then uproariously cheer on " Young 
England's " champion to badger a man who is to him like Ju- 
piter to a rejected satellite.! 

As, in common with my countrymen here, I no longer re- 
gard the Oregon question as a war question, with your per- 
mission I will add a line or two respecting what is desci'ibed 
by you to be " the threatening state of our relations with 
Mexico. " Your intelligent correspondent in that unhappy 
country might have told you that, as against a powerful an- 
tagonist, it is more helpless than a wailing child, whether for 
offence or defence, because it is like a " house divided against 
itself;" that it can no more prevent the flood of emigration 
from the States into California, and its consequences, be they 
what they may, than could the red man close his forests 

*A noble lord, to escape voting took refuge in the coal-hole. 
fSir Robert Peel and Mr. D'Israeli. The latter had been refused office by 
the former. 



87 



against the inundation of the whites ; and that, though it may 
declare war till it is " hoarse with calling, " it can never make 
it, unless, perchance, which I do not suspect, some European 
nation come to its aid, and then, without time even to see 
the forecast shadow of coming events, one universal howl of 
wai - , on both sides of the Atlantic, will for many a year be 
heard, smothering in its death echo the voice of peace. 

Our " democratic pretences, " I sincerely believe, are en- 
tirely misunderstood in Europe, especially as they regard 
territory. We want none of your possessions, and Canada 
we should be much less thankful for, than you yourselves 
would be to get honorably rid of a colony, which is ravenous 
as a horse-leech and ungrateful as its own soil. 

No ! pretences, unjust pretences, if they have an existence, 
time will show that they are not on our side. But in the 
eyes of some, because we are professed Republicans, and 
having power, choose to use it as to us seems best, we there- 
fore and our claims are arrogance itself; and, because we will 
not that kings or nobles should have dominion over us, we are 
for that reason "of the earth earthy," and on the high road 
to anarchy and confusion. And what is most " strange and 
unnatural " is, that it is not those who are divinely hedged 
about and stand in high places that are in general our self- 
deluded or malicious traducers, but mere men, unnoble and 
untitled men like ourselves, who, having sucked in with their 
mother's milk an overweening reverence for rank, cannot bear 
to see others, void of sympathy for their weakness, asserting 
and maintaining the dignity of their common nature. 

Paris, March 18,1846. 



38 



LETTER IX. 

I did not intend to intrude again upon your thickly serried 
columns, at least while they were teeming with messages of 
glory from England's Indian Empire, but your correspondent 
of the 1st inst., " M. J. H. " seems so sad amid the general 
rejoicing, when dwelling on what " Republican integrity was 
twenty years ago, " that I have not the heart to let his touch- 
ing murmurs go by without an attempt to administer consola- 
tion to his perturbed spirit. 

He is a "large holder," he says, "of American securi- 
ties. " Fortunate man ! I would that I too could assert the 
same of myself; especially if, as was the case with him for 
aught that appears, I had purchased them before they rose 
from their first fall. And still more fortunate will he be, if 
he can afford to hold them for a while longer, when, unless 
the most sagacious among us be mistaken, he will receive his 
wept-for treasures, with something better as an accompani- 
ment than he of the " folded napkin " was able to render up 
at the bidding of his lord. 

But, as he may wish to know the grounds of my belief in 
the goodness of these securities, which, according to him, are 
most " facetiously " misnamed, I will inform him that in my 
humble opinion there is more than one upon which his anxious 
and angry heart will find a resting place. The bankrupt 
States, it must console him to know, will, if they remain de- 
faulters a moment longer than stern necessity demands, have 
public opinion throughout the Union to contend against — no 
mean antagonist, when it is considered that its sway is more 
powerful with us than with any other people under the sun ; 
then, in a very few years their rapidly increasing population, 
added to their incalculable sources of wealth, will make the 



39 



payment of their debts so easy, that there will not be room 
to assume to themselves even a virtue in doing it; and the 
last, though not least firm ground I go upon is, that their 
interests, about which they are so "careful," will impera- 
tively demand that justice to their creditors be done. In a 
single word, they cannot afford to be dishonest. 

lam accused of "omitting to touch upon the fraudulent in- 
solvency of many of the States of the Union." But my pen 
must have been long indeed could it have touched what, so 
far as fraud is concerned, a resentful fancy alone has conjured 
up. One State alone has repudiated, and that only a part of its 
bonds. Its reasons for doing so, whether good or bad, are 
before the, world ; and you were so obliging a few months ago 
as to publish my poor views upon the subject, to which I beg 
leave to refer " M. J. II. " since he demands them, but with- 
out venturing to repeat what I then said. If, however, he 
be really bent upon informing himself as to public delinquen- 
cy, I would advise him, while about it, to look into the rec- 
ords of the Bank of England, and inquire for the number of 
years* during which, by act of Parliament, it strove to cover 
the nakedness of its credit with depreciated rags ; and he 
will learn that when the people asked for specie, though 
stones were not literally substituted for bread, they received 
a paper currency, which not even a tyrannical law could pre- 
vail on them to accept as an equivalent for what had been 
promised to them. Perhaps, then, he will admit, that if the 
fourth of a century was required by the richest country in the 
world to redeem its plighted faith, a little space may well be 
allowed to a few infant States, with nothing but broad lands 
and brawny arms to depend upon, wherein to collect their 
" hundred pieces of silver. " 

*25 years. 



40 



Should he again converse with his " many honorable and 
respectable American friends, " I would bid him beware of 
ascribing to them an " admission " of their countrymen's want 
of probity ; for they know, as well as he himself ought, that 
it is the temporary poverty of the defaulting States, and not 
their will, which consents to the duration of their present em- 
barrassment. And if, as he declares, they allege, in exten- 
uation of State defalcation, the " deplorable weakness of the 
Executive, " he may give the lie to their intelligence, with a 
salvo to their honor, if it suit him, by telling them that the 
weakness or the strength of the Executive of the United 
States has no more to do with State liabilities than with the 
election of the Lord Mayor of London. 

I am next charged with vain boasting, though nothing was 
said by me, except in defence of my country and of truth. 
And no less than three paragraphs are devoted to a pretended 
quotation of my words, Avhich are so " lamely and unfashion- 
ably " put together in their new estate, that I verily believe 
the dogs would bark at their halting pace, could they be 
made to listen to them. Why did not your correspondent, 
when honoring me with his notice, rather betake himself, like 
one endowed with reason, to answering my questions and 
meeting my arguments, and why did he not try to .demon- 
strate the feebleness of the United States' Government abroad 
and its imbecility at home, if such things be, instead of peev- 
ishly putting into the mouths of grave legislators the puerile 
bravado of " preferring war with all the world to the payment 
of their debts ?" Unless a blind as well as a deaf devil has 
possessed him, he might have much better employed his time 
in ascertaining whether his debtors are really fraudulent, or 
merely unfortunate, before bedewing them with the stingless 
venom of an angry man. 

If he be a " great holder " of Amsrican securities, let him, 



41 

for his own sake, become also an intelligent one, and no more 
indulge in idle prating about "some" of the States repudiat- 
ing, and " others " doing it with " indignation. " And let 
him give himself no solicitude respecting our " honor," for we 
know what is due to it, equally well with what belongs to our 
creditors ; and he, with all his tribe, may sleep in conviction 
tenfold strong, that the claims of neither shall be neglected. 
He cannot, I think, be so maliciously obtuse as to persist in 
the belief that a debt contracted with the expectation and 
probable means of repayment, and always acknowledged to be 
due, is in itself a subject of disgrace, however, much it may 
be a source of regret to all parties concerned. 

He may '• assume " without fear of contradiction, " that a 
fraudulent bankrupt is considered as infamous by Americans 
as he is by Europeans, " and out of his own mouth will I con- 
vict him of inconsistency. For never have the defaulting 
States, though blamed as rash and imprudent, been despised 
or esteemed infamous by their more fortunate confederates, 
nor indeed, by any European, unless his passion blinded him, 
or his ignorance led him astray. 

You will observe that I do not choose to mix up the solvent 
with the insolvent States, any more than I would calumniate 
the English and the Scotch, because Ireland is a hot-bed of 
assassination. Nor will I admit the liability of our General 
Government for State debts, unless, by parity of reasoning, 
you too will allow that your own is responsible for all bank- 
rupt corporations in the kingdom, that of Edinburgh included, 
and for every broken-down county bank. 

If "M. J.H. " never took the pains, as his present benight- 
ed condition would imply, to ascertain the extent and strength 
of the securities on which he loaned his money, to whom does 
he owe thanks for his losses but to himself alone ? He 
affects to " despise, dislike, and laugh at us,"" but we have 
2* 



42 



not leisnre to listen to the hysteric giggies, or the unmanly 
complaints of a victim to his own greediness and negligence. 
Paris, April 4th, 184G. 



LETTER X. 

A London daily paper of this week " disputed the pro- 
priety of (your) insulting so great and so good a man as Mr. 
"Webster, by placing him in rivalship with such a false and 
shabby creature as Mr. Dallas. " 

Now, without wishing, even if I had the power, to detract 
one jot or tittle from the high and well-won reputation of the 
" great and good " "Whig leader, and without stopping to make 
a single comment upon the extreme delicacy and refined 
taste exhibited in the above quotation towards the American 
Vice-President, I would gladly continue in juxta-position, only 
for a moment, the names of these two distinguished individ- 
uals, so gratuitously brought together for the purpose of extoll- 
ing one at the expense of the other. For if it can be shown, 
that in the most important passages of the political lives of 
these gentlemen, one has done what the other has not left 
undone, it necessarily follows, that either of the two having 
been "false and shabby," his fellow must be so too, and that 
either having been "great and good, " he cannot stand alone 
in his glory. Mr. Dallas was a protectionist, and is become a 
freetrader ; Mr. Webster was a federalist, and is now a dem- 
ocratic Whig. But mark the difference between their coats 
when they were turned, and draw what conclusions you 
will. The former found his rough to the touch, and though 
serviceable, an object of ridicule and censure, while the lat- 
ter felt no surprise at discovering his to be richly lined 
throughout, though of no fixed color. 



43 



In this working-day world, however, we have hardly time 
for splitting hairs about the comparative moral qualities of 
this or of that public man, since it is by their works, and not by 
their motives, that they must be judged, as it is with their 
works alone that we, the " mob, " the " many, " have any 
thing to do. The protective system well tried in England, 
was found wanting, and Sir R. Peel, who rode into office on 
it, preferred catching a fall himself in securing its overthrow 
to journeying upon an easy road, which, however long, he 
saw must infallibly end in ruin. The same suicidal system, 
bolstered up in America by golden arguments and highly feed 
advocates at Washington, has at length met with a Curtius 
ready to make the plunge fatal to it, and, notwithstanding all 
that is said and done against the self-sacrificer, many a fellow 
senator who once stood by, " letting I dare not wait upon I 
would," if the vote were to be taken again upon the tariff 
question, would be found by his side, shoulder to shoulder, in 
support of the common interests of their common country. 
For there is no more chance of the American people, once 
emancipated, becoming a second time hewers of wood and 
drawers of water to those who were the protected " few, " 
than there is of the galled jade's yearning for the collar which 
has worn its neck to a raw. And so slight is the probability 
of the high and noble workers in the liberal cause, though un- 
der a temporary shade, eventually falling before their less en- 
lightened opponents, that, New Englander as I am, and with 
all my interests dependent on New England's prosperity, I 
have no fear lest the scales should not fall from the eyes of 
the monopolists, convinced, as they will soon be, of the wis- 
dom of contenting themselves with a profit that shall feed 
their own households without impoverishing those of others. 

But facts are more valuable than opinions, however numer- 
ous or plausible the latter, if the facts cannot be gainsaid, and 



44 



the opinions want the sanction of a name. And the first to 
be mentioned which will defy all contradiction is, that the 
American manufacturers, so far from needing protection, have 
for some time past been underselling their English competi- 
tors in one of your East India markets, even with a duty of 
12 per cent, to contend against, which has lately been raised 
to If), while the net returns upon their capital have for years 
been between 20 and 40 per cent., which, of course, could 
come from the pockets of the consumers alone, and in 19 
cases of 20 the home consumers. And another fact, not less 
incontrovertible and important, is the physical, to say nothing 
of the moral, impossibility, of the tariff of the many being meta- 
morphosed back into the tariff of the few. During nearly three 
years, at least, the present President of the United States 
will have a large majority in the Senate, and, even setting 
this aside, still two thirds of both Houses at "Washington can 
alone suffice to render his veto of no effect. Then, after the 
expiration of these three years, and when the light of experi- 
ence has had full time to cheer and comfort both the interest- 
ed and benighted, who can believe that the proverbial sa- 
gacity of the Eastern Yankee will not discover how much 
more desirable is a certain profit of 10 and 15 per cent, for 
all time to come, than heavy gains whose own weight must 
sink them in the end? 

That Mr. Dallas was burnt in effigy, as the journal alluded 
to in the commencement of my letter so triumphantly avers, 
is no more a disparagement to him than was Galileo's suffer- 
in"' in the cause of truth to him, or the fiery ordeal in their 
proper persons to many a reformer who was in advance of 
his age ; but should your contemporary be again beguiled 
into descanting upon " uncompromising integrity, " when its 
existence in the individual whose exaltation turns upon an- 
other's abasement, is all a matter of guesswork with him, — or, 



45 



should lie another time rejoice his readers with a " counter- 
feit presentment " of American statesmen, — I would advise 
him, before renewing his instruction of others, diligently to 
seek out a teacher for himself.* 
Paris, Dec. 12, 1816. 



*The " States-max, " to whom we have been indebted for many 
valuable communications, has kindly contributed his testimony, in a 
letter which appears in yesterday's impression, to the truth of our 
comparison between Messrs. WEBSTER and Dallas. The difference 
between these two gentlemen is exceedingly simple. Mr. Dallas, 
having for a long time taken the protectionist theory on trust and 
gone with the stream, has recently had his e_\ es opened with the rest 
of the rational world. It is no discredit to partake of a general con- 
version all but miraculous in its extent, rapidity, and depth. No one 
need be ashamed to be taught by nature and convinced by events. 
But in the case of that noble federation, of which, in all its oneness 
Messrs. Webster and Dallas claim to be statesmen, the destiny of 
the whole, and the relative duties of State to State, conspire with the 
interests of mankind against the petty spirit of monopoly- That an 
empire of serfs, that a bureauocracy, that a nation of contrabandists, 
or any other perverted form of society, should deliberately injure the 
■whole for the supposed good of a few, is too customary a thing to be 
wondered at. But in the United States a monopolist statesman is in 
as false a position as the man who should propose to invest Mr. Polk 
with the insignia of royalty, or claim for the elder States of New 
England a veto on the internal elections and government of the 
Southern and Western States. The wonderful combination of causes 
which has in this country convinced every candid opponent, and stop- 
ped the mouth of every other, ought to tell with tenfold force in the 
free atmosphere of the American Republic. It is Mr. Dallas's 
crime in the eyes of a few interested men that he has yielded to these 
mighty teachings. It is Mr. Webster's glory that he can still defy 
them. 

As for the comparative consistency of the two men, as "a States- 
man" reminds us, it has been the fortune of both to change. Mr. 
Dallas was a Protectionist, and is now a Free-trader ; Mr. Web- 
ster was a Federalist, and is now a Democratic Whig. " Mr. Dal- 
las his enlarged his sympathies to the breadth of the Union ; Mr. 
WEBSTER has contracted them to the proverbial prejudice and nar- 
rowness of a New England manufac urer. Mr. \\ ebster is the 
more remarkable man. He has long been distinguished for informa- 
tion, astuteness, eloquence, versatility, and, above all, for his intimate 
acquaintance with the law and institutions of the mother country. 



46 



LETTER XI. 

Whenever an American President's message to Congress 
arrives in Europe, a hue and cry against the length of it is 
invariably raised by a set of carpers, which would lead one, 
unaccustomed to the false notes of their sweet voices, to sup- 
pose that there existed a dire necessity for each one of them 
to read the offending document from beginning to end. I 
have heard too, in like manner, some dainty dames, whose 
appetites were delicate and patience slender, indulge in affect- 
ed lamentations at the many courses of a ceremonious dinner, 
from which they might have staid away without loss to any 
one except themselves. But these highly sensitive, not to 
say pharisaical, scribes ought to know that the Chief Magis- 
trate of the United States is not paid $25,^00 a year merely 
to occupy a palace and clothe himself in purple and fine linen 
every day. They should be informed that he is not only a 
working man among working men, and as such expected to 
administer his stewardship, and give an account of it too, but 
that if he were to venture to intrude upon his constituents 
such an insult to their understandings as would be a compo- 
sition akin to what is here called a " King's speech, " he 
might with reason calculate on being hooted from the capitol 
to his home by the very boys in the street. 

The gentleman who at present fills the first office in Amer- 
ica, has lately published, for the instruction of his country- 
He has been called the Brougham of America. Whether such 
qualities are the most favor ible to the growth of political honesty, 
candor, and self-sacrifice, we will leave to ethical writers. It is a vul- 
gar opinion that they are very compatible with selfishness and prej- 
udice. Mr. Dallas lias not been so distinguished — that is, till his 
recent elevation. If, however, his recent reply to the Washington 
Committee is to be the test, lie not only possesses great talents, but 
he is preeminently a man to be trusted and believed. 



; 47 

men, and doubtless to the edification of others who will not 
acknowledge it, an explanation of the Mexican war and its 
causes ; and though from my knowledge of his personal char- 
acter, I believe him to be incapable of wilful misrepresenta- 
tion, still I am constrained to declare that, according to my 
humble notions, he has completely failed to prove the necessi- 
ty of it. The whole affair therefore, I regard not only as an 
iniquity, but a blunder. The war was unnecessary, for a 
while at least, because whenever two antagonists, one of whom 
is rich and the other poor, commence negotiations, nothing 
but glaring injustice or peevish impatience can prevent a 
peaceful issue. It might have been avoided too when troops 
were sent into the disputed territory, had a sufficient number 
been ordered there — volunteers, if regulars were not to be 
had — which would have saved the deluded Mexicans from 
their first fatal essay in arms. But I speak now as a 
christian man, an abhorrer of strife, and a lover of peace. 
If, however, it be allowed me to declare my conviction as an 
American, unbiassed by those religious considerations which 
should weigh as heavily with nations as with individuals, I 
would fearlessly assert that for the last two hundred years not 
a single war has been waged in Europe with a juster cause of 
quarrel than that in which my countrymen are at this moment 
engaged. 

Let no one on this side of the Atlantic dare to " cast the 
first stone " at us. The Russian should rather call on the 
mountains of the Caucasus to cover his own shame : The 
Frenchman must begin by rendering an account to God and 
history, of the mass of life* and means of sustenance that 
have been turned into worse than a dead loss in avenging a 
thoughtless rap of a fan. And you yourselves confess, " that 

*100,0O0 French soldiers have perished in Algeria. 



48 



to govern in India you must conquer, and that to prevail you 
must continue to advance. " You did not hesitate an instant 
to declare war against Spain when the ears of an obscure 
Englishman were cut from his head in that country : With- 
in a child's memory France has been murdering on a whole- 
sale scale in the Pacific, because a poor half-savage Queen 
saw fit to wave a flag whose colors did not suit its fancy : 
And shall we, "the great and kindred nation treading in your 
steps, " whose force, like yours in the East, must ever be pre- 
eminently a moral force — shall we listen unmoved to the 
cries of our countrymen rotting in Mexican gaols, and of 
their bereaved and beggared families imploring redress ? 
Paris, Jan. 6, 1847. 



LETTER XII. 

Owing to accident I did not see The Times of the 5th inst. 
which contained " A G.'s " letter upon " the delinquent 
States of America, " till more than twenty-four hours after its 
reception in Paris, or I would bave taken an earlier notice of 
it. Not that its writer, when be thought "it would meet 
the eye of some honest American, " had the least right to ex- 
pect any answer to a communication so querulously and rude- 
ly sbaped ; but that I am desirous of suggesting to him, and 
others who have been wronged, and deeply wronged too, the 
unprofitableness of trying to right themselves by means of 
abusive language, indiscriminately employed. Even the stu- 
pid fellow who put his head in the lion's mouth had the good 
sense to remain quiet till he could withdraw it in safety ; and 
the simplest of American backwoodsmen never yet ventured 
to " raise a cry till he was well out of the wood. " 



49 



"We are told on the highest authority, " Not to answer a 
fool according to his folly, lest we also be like unto him. ' 
But as in the following verse we are allowed to "Answer a 
fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit, " 
I trust your correspondent will not take it amiss if I prove 
by his own words, and others not less worthy, that the term 
" collective roguery, " when applied, as it is by him, to the 
people of the United States, is as indiscreet on his part as it is 
unfavorable to " the profound respect entertained for your 
paper in America, " to which " an author of great talent and 
accuracy" bears such undeniable testimony. 

" A. G. " confines himself, at least nominally, to four of the 
delinquent States, which must therefore be considered as pre- 
eminently criminal in his opinion ; and, as he had his choice 
among them all, it cannot be expected that I, who would 
avoid prolixity, should travel out of the record in search of 
others to refute him, if reference to these alone will answer 
my purpose. In the first instance, cited by him, the Avhole 
country is condemned, because in receiving Florida into the 
Union,- its debts were not adopted at the same time. But 
there was no more reason for doing this, than there was for 
assuming the responsibility of all the obligations of every de- 
faulting State. It is true that Florida had been a national 
territory, and as such, had borrowed money on bonds, but the 
faith of the " States " was never pledged for the validity of 
these bonds, nor ever understood to be so by the lenders them- 
selves. And every one who took the pains to incmire, might 
have ascertained that all responsibility with respect to them 
ended where it began — that is, in the territory itself, unless 
the approbation and registry of them by Congress had been 
first secui'ed. Add to this, that the debt of Florida as a 
State is of more value than the debt of Florida as a territory 
and the charge of " collective roguery " against the whole na- 
tion falls, in this case to the ground. 



50 

Pennsylvania is next subjected to the ordeal of your cor- 
respondent's censure. Having premised that a large portion 
of the inhabitants of that State are Germans, who can with 
difficulty be induced to submit to direct taxation, and that four 
fifths of the rest of the population were always ready to do 
their duty, I will, for the moment, content myself with quoting 
the words of another correspondent, " O, " in your number of 
the 2d inst., whose correct information goes hand in hand with 
"even-handed justice." He says with regard to the State un- 
der consideration, that " what she has done has proved that 
she is earnestly endeavoring to pay, and each successive year 
shows an improvement in her position, such as to give a ra- 
tional ground for believing that she will fully restore her 
credit in a short time. " 

Of Maryland, which is the third defaulter on whom " A. G." 
in just but ill-directed wrath descends, he himself declares, 
that " she has paid part of her arrears in specie, and has not, 
at present, attempted to fund the remainder at a rate of inter- 
est inferior to that paid on her original debt. " And of Illi- 
nois, the fourth on the black list, he adds, that she " will be 
honest when her means permit her. " 

What, then, becomes of the charge of "collective rogue- 
ry ? " And if the individual States be pronounced guiltless 
of fraudulent intent, how can the United States be condemned ? 

It ought to be made known that, while no efforts are want- 
ing to redeem State honor, the warmest and most general 
sympathy is felt for foreign creditors by all " American gen- 
tlemen of private worth and public honesty," who " A. G.," 
in unpardonable ignorance, or most inexcusable ferocity, says 
are "rari nantes in gurgite vasto." And he should have 
blushed at the miserable sarcasm flung at American ancestry, 
when even his schoolboy reading must have taught him that 
" the convicted and fugitive outcasts of the Old "World" were 
honored martyrs to religious and political opinions. 



51 



To show that I do not speak at random, when I talk of 
" efforts and sympathy," I will briefly mention, that in Missis- 
sippi, the frailest of the fallen sisterhood, numbers of the best 
and richest citizens have offered to subscribe their respective 
shares towards paying off all debts, repudiated and not repu- 
diated, principal and interest ; and that in Massachusetts, 
owners of State stocks have voluntary agreed to deter their 
own claims till creditors in other lands have received their 
due. 

In extenuation, but not in justification, of the greediness 
and improvidence with which many of the States contracted 
loans beyond their present means of repa} r ment, I would 
remark, that their over-weening and disastrous self-confidence 
grew out of the eagerness that foreigners showed to lend them 
money, and the facility with which two not inconsiderable 
debts had been paid off by the general government since its 
short existence. But do not understand me as defending, 
much less advocating, repudiation in one State, or the pitiful 
approximation to it in another. Shame, unmitigated shame, 
belongs to them both. It is their rightful portion, and should 
rest, like the brand of thrice-heated iron, upon their brows, 
but on theirs alone, until self-purgation has entitled them to 
assume their former high position, from which, alas ! a con- 
taminating relationship has dragged down the innocent in a 
disgraceful descent. 

Paris, January 10, 1847. 



52 



LETTER XIII. 

You will regard it, perhaps, as very supererogatory on the 
part of one who is neither of Freneh or English birth, to 
express an opinion upon the relations subsisting between two 
leading nations of Europe — its self-constituted high consta- 
bles and the would-be supervisors of the American continent. 
You may so regard it, because of the apparent uselessness of 
adding a single touch to the comprehensive and masterly- 
drawn views so often furnished forth by you of late, to the 
delight and instruction of your many readers. But, as the 
judge on his bench does not disdain the testimony of an eye- 
witness to a transaction submitted to his decision, provided no 
dishonesty is suspected, however humble be the intellect of 
the speaker, so you may jwssibly not turn a deaf ear to the 
result of my experience during a long residence in France, 
as there can be no motive on my part for deception. 

Far be it from me, even if it were within my power, to 
plant or water the smallest seed of discontent among indi- 
viduals, and infinitely further from me be the will, as is the 
power, to set communities at strife. From such audacious 
iniquity I should shrink as I would from the responsibility 
(enormous as it must be in God's sight) of the gratuitious 
slaughter in Avar's unholy name which is now going on in dif- 
ferent parts of the globe, whatever be the flag under which it 
is perpetrated. But, just as I would avoid evil doing, and, 
on the contrary, Avould help to establish, as far as in me lies, 
a good understanding Avherever practicable, sparing no pains 
to maintain it Avhen once confirmed, so I should hold myself 
deeply criminal if, perceiving at any time in the very founda- 
tion of such understanding a principle fatal to its duration, I 
were wilfully to keep silence. 



53 



The French Minister for Foreign Affairs, a few days since, 
said, " Policy is founded on the sentiments, the instincts, and 
the wants of the soul ; and the mechanical system, that rela- 
tions between nations result from material influences, is false 
and to be deprecated." But what, I should like to know, is 
to be done when no such community of sentiments, or in- 
stincts, or wants of the soul can be found ? when there is 
nothing to appeal to except material interests, and influences ? 
What better can be done than to avail one's self of these de- 
spised interests and influences, whereon to consti'uct an unaf- 
fected good fellowship at the least ? It was because more 
than this was attempted that the late entente cordicde between 
England and France broke down. Too much was expected 
from it on the strength of a supposititious sentiment. An 
exotic, the product of a factitious soil, was deemed capable 
of sustaining the rough breezes which none but a plant of 
natural growth can withstand, and the consequence was, that 
a breath, even from the south, destroyed it. 

As I have before said, France is not a strange country in 
my eyes, nor are its parties unknown to me for lack of rep- 
sentatives of them among my acquaintances. I can hardly, 
therefore, be accused of superficiality, when I remark, that 
there is nothing here but material influences on which the 
English can rely, as a permanent base of friendly relations. 
I have taxed my memory severely, and I speak the truth 
when I declare, that never was uttered within my hearing by 
a Frenchman, a single sentence which indicated favor or affec- 
tion towards your countrymen in the mass. What mockery 
is it, then, to talk about what has no reality! — about "in- 
stincts and wants of the soul ! " especially when it is remem- 
bered that there are other all-sufficient influences, ever opera- 
ting on both sides of the Channel, to keep the two rival 
nations on neighborly terms, — the only terms that promise 



54 



any lasting security ! A proper apprehension of the great com- 
mon cause in which, as representatives of constitutional 
rights, they are engaged in eternal opposition to absolutism, 
is a better bond of union between them than the most cun- 
ningly-devised fable respecting instinctive and sentimental 
wants ; and the recollection, that rogues are never so happy 
as when honest men fall out, should save them from stultify- 
ing themselves a second time by giving to Russia another 
opportunity of plucking, with impunity, amid their dissensions, 
the long-coveted fruit which she dare not otherwise touch. 

But, after all, what interests or influences, material or sen- 
timental, has England in common with this country, worthy to 
stand alongside of those which exist, and must forever exist, 
between her and her Trans-atlantic kinsmen ? Cover every 
acre of France with the salt sea tomorrow, and England 
would be no worse off the day after than she is now. Not 
one of her myriads of wheels would be stopped, not a work- 
man would cease from his labor, and not a mouth the less 
would be filled. But let that country, whose productions 
supply her factories with materials wherewith to employ and 
clothe her people, and help to keep starvation at bay, be 
washed into nothingness by some mighty convulsion of nature, 
and she might, with good reason, fold her arms in dismay and 
become a " waiter upon Providence." 

There is no sympathy between Englishmen and French- 
men. Your blunt bearing is taken by them for rudeness, just 
as their solicitude to please is mistaken by you for hypocrisy. 
Your plain speaking argues, in their opinion, an indifference 
to the feelings of others, while their anxiety to avoid giving 
offence, convicts them in your esteem of insincerity. Even 
to language, the same importance is not attached by you and 
by them ; and a slight infraction of truth is not so severely 
judged here as in England. But this arises from an habitual 



55 

looseness of expression, and a lighter reverence for truth 
itself, perhaps, rather than from a spirit of mendacity. By 
their own standard then, and not by yours, should they be 
acquitted or condemned. Still, the fact is incontrovertible, 
that there is no community of feeling between you, and that 
in France an Englishman is looked upon as an alien in every 
sense of the word, and treated as such, except so far as the 
influence of money acts upon his condition. He is in society 
without being of it. His table is filled if it be well covered, 
and his saloons are crowded if the eye, the ear, and the mouth 
have been luxuriously catered for. But look at his fire-side, 
and there you will see neither friends nor intimate associates, 
save those of his own race. His wines are drunken, his 
good things are eaten, and his guests go heedlessly away, in 
perfect indifference, barring what is yet to be got out of him, 
whether their host shall be found the next week on his way 
to Pere la Chaise, to the Rue de Clichy, or to Australia. 

In contrast with all this, now let me ask, what is an Eng- 
lishman's reception in the United States, when proper cre- 
dentials are not wanting ? I was upon the point of asking 
what it was before the slander-market of London had created 
a supply equal to the demand? But, notwithstanding all that 
has come and gone, I will still inquire what it is, even now ? 
And I fear no contradiction from any of your countrymen, 
who have crossed the Atlantic, when, without waiting for a 
reply, I say it is such as the native of no other land than 
that of our fathers will meet with, even though he present 
himself under the most favorable auspices, for the simple 
reason that it is dictated by " sentiments of the soul," to 
which " material influences " hold a very secondary place. 

Paris, February 8, 1847. 



56 



LETTER XIV. 

Everybody knows there is Quixotism in politics as well as 
in religion, and though I am not aware that the one or the 
other belongs peculiarly to your countrymen, yet my observa- 
tion has led me to believe that when an individual of the 
island race is fully possessed of the spirit of either, not red- 
hot iron is more disagreeable to handle, nor the cold metal 
itself more difficult to bend ; and this M. Guizot may find 
out to his cost, when experience teaches him that the stiffness 
of the Puritan, and the wiliness of the Jesuit united, are by 
no means an equal match for it. 

If, as is proverbially said, Truth lies at the bottom of a 
well, the well where she has taken refuge at the present 
moment must be profoundly deep ; for, notwithstanding she 
has been assiduously sought for, on both sides of the Channel, 
to clear up the mystery which envelopes the much-fretted 
question of the Spanish marriages, she has hitherto so effectu- 
ally eluded pursuit, that, beyond the simple fact of two 
princes having espoused two princesses in spite of England's 
remonstrances, every thing is as problematical as the French 
King's good faith, his Prime Minister's political honesty, or 
the Spanish Queen-mother's innocence. 

Fortunately the quarrel, which is like to prove a " very 
pretty" one, belongs as yet exclusively to the Governments of 
the two countries, while the English and French people care 
no more about it, or the cause of it, than they do about the 
rupture of the peace of Amiens, or the fate of last year's 
snow. But Lord Palmerston very naturally feels sore at hav- 
ing been overreached, and the more so, because bent as he is 
on recovering from his bad reputation of being the first fire- 
eater in Europe, his hands, it may be, are to a certain extent 



57 



tied. Nevertheless, as no one need be told, neither he nor 
his subordinates at Paris and Madrid have been slow or un- 
decided in announcing by word and deed his thorough dis- 
approbation and condemnation of the course pursued by his 
adversaries. It i3 asserted, and as I believe truly, since no 
denial on worthy authority has ever been made to it, that an 
understanding was entered into, while the monarchs of France 
and England were holding high holiday at the Chateau d'Eu 
— an understanding more binding from its very nature than 
any written compact among gentlemen could be — to the effect 
that, provided the British Ministry refrained from urging the 
Coburg claim at Madrid, the French, on their side, would not 
press the marriage of the Duke de Montpensier till a certain 
time had elapsed, or a certain event taken place, subsequent 
to the espousals of the Spanish Queen ; that in the face of 
such agreement not only was the offensive act complained of 
done, but clone cunningly and clandestinely ; and that now a 
perfect right exists in the wronged party to exact an indem- 
nity against the mischievous consequences which may grow 
out of such faithless proceedings. 

But the French King, having secured a princess and a 
princely dowry for his son, turns a deaf ear to all this ; though 
I cannot help thinking he sometimes regrets what has been 
done, or, at least, the manner of doing it ; since, if my infor- 
mation be as correct as from its source it ought to be, he is 
far from being tranquil at heart for its possible results. And 
with good reason, too, for the English being by tradition a 
people fond of " a word and a blow," giving precedence 
often to the blow over the word, he cannot but be apprehen- 
sive lest he receive an unwelcome remembrancer of his sins 
of omission and commission, without even the prophetic 
words — " Thou art the man ! " — once thundered in a Eoyal 
ear, to put him on his guard. 
3 



58 

And yet it seems that the Dowager Queen Christina was 
the sole immediate exciter of so much bitter blood, for the 
English and French Governments, it would appear, were of 
accord on most points involved in the marriageable condition 
of the Spanish Queen and her sister, when their mother, 
taking fright, perhaps, at certain ultra-liberal demonstrations 
connected with the popularity of the unmanageable Don Hen- 
rico, instructed her agent in London to acquaint the English 
Ministers with her willingness to give her eldest daughter to 
a Coburg Prince, if they would further such a scheme by 
their instant support ; for, as she told them, it was her fixed 
determination to marry her to some one without delay. It 
has been suggested that she did this in order to entrap them 
into a false step, which would have released Louis Philippe 
from his promise, and allowed him and her to do what they 
had long since agreed upon; but better informed persons be- 
lieve that she was playing her own game, independently of 
her French ally, under the mistaken notion that others were 
as void of honesty as herself. For her sole and selfish fear 
was lest, a son-in-law being found capable of appreciating her 
at her just value, he should unite himself with the true friends 
of Spain and its liberal institutions, and she be thrust out 
of the kingdom a second time, to be henceforth a wanderer 
from the scenes of her former grandeur and her base in- 
trigues. 

Lord Palmerston's answer was quick and resolute, — " Eng- 
land's honor could not be violated even to advance the family 
interests of England's Queen." Post haste was this message 
carried to Madrid, and hardly was it delivered before another 
in still hotter haste was despatched to Paris, which astounded 
the Spanish Minister, took even Louis Philippe by surprise, 
and awoke M. Guizot from a state of complete ignorance as 
to the advanced stage of the negotiation. But the astonish- 



59 



merit of the first and the ignorance of the last were of little 
import to the Royal juggler, who, on receiving the Queenly 
missive, after a moment's reflection, exclaimed, " Be it so ! " 
He hesitated ; not that he disapproved of the proposition it 
contained, but that he doubted if it were the fitting hour for 
carrying it into execution ; and the amount of this proposition, 
which we now know, was, that the writer, having resolved at 
every cost to put an end to an uncertainty which might termi- 
nate in her banishment, and chosen a suitable husband for 
her eldest child, would give to Louis Philippe, if he took part 
in such arrangement and broke troth with the English, a 
Royal dowry, and almost a Royal bride, for his son. "Where- 
upon, the temptation proving too strong to be withstood by a 
man whose heart has been for years a stranger to every feel- 
ing but a passion for accumulating riches, and an anxiety to 
perpetuate his dynasty, the regal sanction required was hur- 
ried off by a return courier, and things have come to the pass 
where we now find them. 
Paris, Nov. 13, 184G. 



LETTER XV. 

As a stranger I have no claims upon you ; as a foreigner, 
and that foreigner an American, still less ; yet, in the possi- 
bility of meeting with indulgence at your hands, I venture, 
through the only journal that cannot escape his notice, to ad- 
dress the enclosed note to Viscount Palrnerston, Her Majes- 
ty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, M. P., <fcc. 

My Lord, — You are, or are supposed to be, a statesman, 
a Christian, and a gentleman. If it were otherwise I would 
not take the liberty or the trouble of referring to a speech 



60 



made by you in the House of Commons on the 6th of July 
last. But, believing that the world renders to your character 
no more than is its due, I would fain ask, if it was not your 
bounden duty, on that occasion, when you so unnecessarily 
dragged into debate the concerns of a third nation, thoroughly 
to acquaint yourself with the affairs about which you dis- 
coursed, that you might not, through sheer ignorance, trans- 
gress the laws of peace, prudence, and courtesy ? 

In reply to Lord George Bentinck's motion respecting 
Spanish bonds, you saw fit most gratuitously to arraign the 
United States of America, and to threaten them, at least by 
implication, with the strong hand of coercion, unless, forsooth, 
certain defaulting members among them "wiped away from 
their history that blot which," according to you, "must be con- 
sidered as a serious stain upon their national character." 

I am unwilling to insult your intelligence by presuming you 
to be ignorant of the fact that the Government at Washing- 
ton never participated in State debts, by consequence never 
incurred any responsibility, and, therefore, can in no way be 
held accountable for a single dollar of them. But wherein 
the General Government neither could nor would act, individ- 
ual governments have not been heedless or inactive. Pre- 
mising that two-thirds of the United States, containing more 
than four-fifths of the entire population, either never contract- 
ed a debt, or never committed a default, it should be known 
that all the rest have resumed payment, or are upon the point 
of doing so, with a few exceptions, one alone of which has 
ever repudiated any portion of its bonds. Nor is Mississippi, 
the repudiator, wholly without the show of justice on her side ; 
for she has offeied, through her constitutional organ, the 
Legislature, to waive all objection to jurisdiction, and to abide 
the issue of a trial at law. What can be fairer than this pro- 
position, which her creditors should immediately avail them- 



61 



selves of, to carry into the Supreme Court of the United 
States a single case that would be decisive of all others, and 
at a very trifling expense ? 

While obscure and isolated sufferers gave vent to their just 
but ill-directed indignation, silence, it may be, best became 
the calumniated ; but when a gentleman in your high station 
enunciates sentiments like yours, it is well to inquire whether 
higher, nobler, and more philanthropic ground could not have 
been taken by him ; and whether God and all good men would 
not have more approved you, had you been guiltless of bra- 
vado, and not forgotten those great common bonds of interest 
(blood and religion) which should forever "grapple with 
hooks of steel " the hearts of Englishmen to the hearts of 
Americans ? 

Were European communities composed of " people of the 
ballot-box," as those of the " model republic" are truly, but 
in tasteless mockery, described by you to be, every body 
knows that their public debts would not be worth a day's pur- 
chase. What wisdom was there, then, in flouting a nation 
which, by the ballot-box itself, and universal suffrage too, has 
incontrovertibly demonstrated a saving popular virtue to exist 
within its limits that is to be found nowhere else ? You your- 
self, I doubt not, regretted as soon as it was spoken the 
speech that fell from your lips ; for, even without the excuse 
of occasion, it breathed the spirit of war — unnecessary war, 
that concentration of all crime, and its burden was menace — 
empty menace, disparaging to your reputation as a statesman 
and a man. 

Menace, my Lord, is unworthy the mouth of an English- 
man, or the ears of his countrymen ; and still less is it an ar- 
gument fit to address to the Transatlantic descendants of 
Englishmen. What ! England make war on America be- 
cause a few poverty-stricken States cannot for the moment 



62 



pay the interest on their bonds ! I would not be guilty of 
disrespect towards your lordship, but surely it was not in 
earnest that you gave countenance to such an impossible ex- 
travagance. Or, if it was, let rne entreat you to forbear in 
future from such untoward earnestness, unless you are per- 
fectly disregarded of the rights both of foreign and domestic 
State creditors ; for, though " Paul may plant and Apollos 
water," God alone (not to speak it profanely) can give an in- 
creased value to depreciated stocks in this country, if they 
who are responsible for their payment are to be dragooned 
into doing what is right by English dictation and denuncia- 
tion. 

Boston, U. S. A., Aug. 1G, 1847. 



LETTER XVI. 

As the remarks which it pleased you to make upon my let- 
ter of August 16th were not published till after the steamer's 
departure from Liverpool on the 4th of September, they ne- 
cessarily could not reach me before the arrival here of the 
next mail — that of the 19th of the same month — and con- 
sequently the present is the first regular opportunity I have 
had of returning an answer, which, brief as I shall try to 
make it, will not, I trust, be refused the privilege of appear- 
ing in the columns of the Times. 

If you have any recollection of my communications, so 
flatteringly received at your office until now, you will do me 
the justice to acknowledge that in none of them have I ever 
favoied either the principle or the practice of repudiation . 
but, on the contrary, have unreservedly condemned them, 
though at times repeating the excuses made by repudiators 
themselves, but never adopting their sentiments, while I stated 



63 

what is the opinion of most intelligent and honest persons in 
the States, that through legitimate means, judiciously used, 
this land will eventually be cleansed, and at no distant day, 
from the stains both of bankruptcy and repudiation, without 
being "put to its purgation" by the threat of foreign inter- 
ference. 

To accomplish so desirable an end — an end devoutly to be 
wished for by every American who has a heart to feel for his 
country's honor, or to sympathize with the victims of State 
delinquency — I have added my feeble influence to that of many 
other men far more powerful than myself ; and you, Sir, need 
not be informed that the work has prospered, since you ad- 
mit, that " a portion of those (States) which had stopped pay- 
ment have begun to pay dividends anew," — thanks (you 
might have continued) to those much-despised ballot-boxes, 
which, in anti-republican fervor, you would fain "cast into the 
Mississippi amongst the snags and sawyers." Yet with such 
a fact as this — the resumption of payment by mere force of 
popular suffrage — and that, too, in more than one instance — 
staring you in the face, and with "no wish to rip up old sores," 
as you say, you have, to my regret and astonishment, in your 
article of September 6th, run directly counter to your own 
declared purpose. 

In my letter of March 18th, 1846, I remarked, that "to no 
part of the people of this country were the common rudiments 
of education strange;" and, arguing upon this undisputed 
truth, as well as upon the good degree of intelligence pervad- 
ing the community, I thought it a fair conclusion, and it is 
one which, according to your own confession, results have 
not falsified thus far, that the worldly wisdom and practical 
virtue of my countrymen would not permit a continuation of 
non-payment of debts any longer than stern necessity requir- 
ed it. I claimed for them a superiority over the common peo- 



64 



pie of England, large portions of whom, for lack of moral and 
intellectual culture, are known by every traveller in the two 
countries to be below the lowest standard of humanity in 
America, and masses of whom your own reports of Parliament 
describe to be so grossly ignorant that the names of Jesus 
Christ and Pontius Pilate are confounded together in their 
thoughts, while the existence of a God is hardly entertained 
by them as a possibility in which they have any concern.* 
But I never was presumptuous enough to pronounce them so 
enamoured of justice in the abstract that they would immolate 
themselves upon its altar though the heavens were about to 
fall. I thought them in the main more than " indifferent hon- 
est," but I never imputed to them that sublime virtue which 
is made more virtuous by kicks and buffets. It was therefore 
that I entreated you not to " o'er leap your custom of choice 
terms," lest you should defeat your own intent ; and it was 
therefore that I said, and said advisedly, that though Paul 
may plant and Apollos water, if you persist in dragooning 
and denouncing your debtors, you will do more harm than 
good — you will tear down faster than the best of ns can re- 
pair the shattered fabric of State-credit. But because in all 
truth and friendliness I gave you this warning, sincerely pity- 
ing the victims of American bankruptcy, and feeling no less 
shame for imprudent defaulters on one side of me, than dis- 
gust for reckless repudiators on the other ; and because I ad- 
vised the creditors of Mississippi how, at the expense of a 
few dollars, they might knock the paltry prop of law from 
beneath her in a court of equity at Washington, (which, by 
the way, could not be attempted without her legislative sanc- 
tion,) my " pleading is disgraceful " in your eyes — " more 
disgraceful than the knavery of my client." But, thank 

* Laborers in the Mining Districts arc here alluded to, See Parliament- 
ary Reports. 



05 



Heaven, as there was an appeal from Philip drunk to Philip 
sober, so is there, I hope, one also from the Editor of the 
Times misconceiving my words, to the Editor of the Times 
convinced of his error. 

Whatever may be the authority on which you declare, that 
in the United States " public opinion is busy to palliate, to 
excuse, to applaud, and not to censure and condemn acts, for 
which, in Europe, a bankrupt would be refused his certificate," 
it is utterly worthless. Upon no spot on earth is public 
opinion more powerful for good than it is here. If it works 
slowly, it works surely, as is proved by the solvency of sev- 
eral bankrupt States, of which you formerly despaired. But 
recollect that Rome was not built in a day. And when you, 
impatient at the little visible progress made, not only withhold 
due credit from those who have redeemed the error of their 
ways, but unscrupulously term "non-rascality" the admitted 
honesty of four-fifths of a mighty population, putting it, more 
wittily than wisely, " upon a par with not forging a check, or 
not embezzling an employer's money," you tempt me to in- 
quire, whether you think that in so doing you render more 
honorable the high mission to which you are called, as the 
foremost journalist in the world, whose responsibility at the 
present critical moment is such as should make a conscien- 
tious man tremble. 

You believe that "the American name w ill not recover for 
half a century the slur that has been cast upon it." It is a 
long time, fifty years, for the convalescence of a nation in its 
first youth, having all Europe before it for a guide and warn- 
ing. But long as is the term which your imagination fixes 
upon, and accurate as is your judgment in general, I doubt 
not that you and I will yet survive to witness the fallacy of 
your prophecy. Not fifty years were necessary, but less than 
fifty months sufficed the Bank of England to recover from the 



66 



slur of its legalized bankruptcy, though, it had wantoned in its 
depreciated rags for the fourth of a century ; and as for your 
Northern Capital, though its honesty, or "non-rascality," 
as you have christened the thing, is long past praying for, we 
never hear of your " having an uneasy feeling in your 
breeches pockets whenever a ' sandy-haired Scotchman ' pass- 
es you in the streets. " 

From my "exquisite probity and reasoning" you draw 
these three "conclusions," which, barring all offence, are 
" most lame and impotent : " — " first, that the repudiating 
States (State ?), and those who countenance their repudia- 
tion " (a countenance more strange than true), "upon the 
showing of their advocates " (I know not such), " are doing 
what is dishonest and wrong " (never by me gainsaid), " with 
the most perfect knowledge of the fact " (whch I deny as in- 
ference from my words, seeing that I spoke of right as I, 
not they, regarded it) : " secondly, that there must be a spe- 
cial interposition, a miracle worked, before such words as 
good-faith and fair-dealing are admittted into the vocabulary 
of the Union": (Even had the Union, instead of a remote 
fraction of it, been the subject-matter of my comment, still I 
could not rightly be held accountable for misconstruction like 
this) : and, "thirdly, that the attributes of Providence are ab" 
solutely limited in the case of the American debtor, should his 
dormant tendency to non-payment be roused into vitality by 
the most distant hint from his creditor :" Not "distant hints,' 
but direct threats, and that, too, from the English Foreign 
Secretary, were the provocation to the criticism which has 
been so highly honored by you. 

I cannot accept, Sir, the distinction of being ranked among 
" American statesmen," so gibingly conferred upon me ; but 
while helping, within my limited sphere, to smooth down the 
asperities which have occasionally risen between your country 



67 



and mine, it seemed to me, native-born as I am to tlie States, a 
not unsuitable signature to assume, that of a " States man." 
Boston, U. S. A., Oct. 16th, 1847. 



LETTER XVII. 

"Without regarding my opinion — the opinion of an Am- 
erican and Republican — upon French affairs as " rich, " 
you may possibly look upon it as " rare," and consequently 
give a place to it in your otherwise better filled columns. 

When the late revolution took place in Paris, or, as it 
should rather be called, accidental eruption and evident reve- 
lation of the spirit of regeneration that has now been work- 
ing in the bowels of Europe for years, I was at once con- 
vinced of its ultimate usefulness, end in whatever way it 
might. I knew from long personal observation, that things 
here had been for a great while in the worst possible train, 
as must always be the case whenever the real interests of the 
ruled are made subordinate to either the real or imaginary 
interests of their rulers. I knew that, as with individuals, a 
State which systematically exceeds its revenue to a large 
amount must by necessity, sooner or later, fall into bank- 
ruptcy and anarchical confusion. And I knew, too, that the 
late King of the French had, for a counteracting force against 
such hostile influences, wilfully provoked by himself, neither 
a political party, personal adherents, nor attached friends. 
To have maintained him, therefore, longer on the throne — 
him, upon whom the experience of many years and extraor- 
dinary vicissitudes had obviously been thrown away — would 
have been, it is true, to defer the evil day, but it would have 



68 



been also to increase in frightful progression the amount of 
the evil itself. It was in consequence of reflections like 
these, that I was rejoiced at the Revolution of February, being 
well assured, that a great, a generous and a deceived people, 
could not but be the gainers by it. 

And now comes the question, what is to happen next, and 
in what is the present confusion of parties and politics to end ? 
For my part, I am persuaded that Republicanism, or man's 
self-government, will, like truth, prevail at last, wherever the 
blessings of civilization are felt ; but I am also and equally 
persuaded, that Frenchmen are no more fitted for its appreci- 
ation and enjoyment now, than they were in 1830, when even 
the brave and sanguine Lafayette, shrank with honest dis- 
trust from setting up the cherished idol of his youth, his 
manhood and his age. That a Republic — a bad, a bastard 
Republic — is, and for a time will continue to exist here, I do 
not doubt ; but that a good, a well-proportioned and a dura- 
ble Republican form of Government can be adjusted to this 
disjointed people, seems to me as impossible, as for the most 
skilful tailor to fit becomingly a well-made garment to the dis- 
torted limbs of a humpback. 

Had Louis Phillipe faithfully fulfilled the mission to which 
lie was called by God and man — had he labored night and 
day to educate the masses of his subjects, so that an immense 
proportion of them, should have been no longer unable to 
read their prayers and write their names — had he, after that, 
sought, in judicious kindness and with prescient wisdom, to 
extend the right of suffrage gradually and according to the 
increase of knowledge — had he discarded bribery, diminished 
taxation, adopted a free trade policy, and striven to augment 
the income of the State — had he, in a word, served his people 
with a tithe of the intense fidelity with which he tried to 
serve (not served) his family and himself — France of the 



69 



present day would have been more than a Republic in name* 
with a beloved monarch at her head, and twenty years hence, 
she would have become a Republic in very deed. 

It may seem to you presumptuous, and perhaps it is, for 
me, a stranger in Europe, to criticise the deeds or misdeeds 
of the Provisional Government of France — self-constituted 
lords paramount since the 24th of February. But there are 
some things so " plain, that the wayfaring man. though a fool, 
need not err therein ;" and is not this one of them ? M. de 
Lamartine and his coadjutors were literally, as you know, 
mob-chosen. They were, therefore, less the rightful repre- 
sentatives of their country and its power, than mere tempo- 
rary and volunteer agents to keep the wheels of State in mo- 
tion, till such time as the nation at large could express its will 
and act for itself. They were like sub-officers on the deck of 
a ship, with only just so much delegated authority as the 
stern necessities of the safety general demanded. Whence 
comes it, then, that they have dared to exercise more than im- 
perial authority, — have gratuitously tampered with the rights 
of property, — have dabbled beyond their depth in matters 
of finance, and even stooped from their high functions to the 
prescribing the fashion of a coat ?* It is that, in a pitiful pro- 
pitiatory spirit towards their mob-creators, they were will- 
ing, nay, anxious, it would seem, to commit the future Repre- 
sentatives of the nation to a course, the adoption of which is 
very likely to drive the nine hundred members out of doors 
and windows, some fine morning, at the point of the pike and 
the bayonet. 

But in answer to the suggestion of this possible event, f it is 
said that the bourgeoisie of Paris are too strong to be success- 
fully resisted by the populace, however enraged it may be at 

*Costume of Kepresentatives. 

•fThe Assembly was expelled by a mob in less than a week after this let- 
ter was written. 



70 



the disappointment of its unreasonable expectations, which 
have been so recklessly excited. Sheer nonsense ! One man 
of the barricades, is worth, in action, ten of the Garde Ra- 
tionale. Besides, this bourgeoisie, this National Guard, of 
which we hear so much, are no lovers of Republicanism, ex- 
cept as for the moment they think it the synonym of order; 
but are instinctively, and by their dearest interests, bound 
heart and soul to courts and drawing-rooms, to costly equi- 
pages and aristocratic faubourgs, and to all those Avho wear 
purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day. 

Below the bourgeoisie are found the unambitious workmen, 
who very sincerely advocate a Republic, for the simple rea- 
son that they have been taught to believe it the only means 
whereby their hands can be provided with work and their bel- 
lies with bread, and the canaille, who are rampant in a cause 
which promises to their imagination immunity in licentious- 
ness. But above the middle class, are the capitalists, the 
gentry, the Royalists, the aristocrats — call them what you 
will — in short, the men of knowledge and intelligence, who 
see clearly that the time has not arrived in France for the 
" lion to lie clown with the kid," — for St. Germain and St. An- 
toine to embrace each other ; and who, if the word Republic 
is by a palliating sort of force majeure upon their lips, have 
garnered up within their hearts the image of a King — a 
puppet king if you please, and of a Court that shall forever 
keep in mind the remembrance of their past glories. 

Men here, then, are at sixes and sevens as to their ideas of 
Government, and parties are at daggers-drawing, though with 
unruffled composure of look and demeanor ; and I verily be- 
lieve, that thousands who are shouting for a Republic, shout 
in the fear or falseness of their hearts, and in entire unbelief 
of its possibility, for they must know that it is founded on a 
lie — a pretext, the pretext ' that it is the nation's wish, and 
that, therefore, it cannot stand. 



71 



The very persons who wrought the revolution in Paris, 
were identical in class with those against whom the National 
Guard and troops of the line in Rouen and Lyons have since 
been fighting to the death. At one moment it was the toss of 
a copper whether the Duchess of Orleans should be appoint- 
ed Regent to the infant King, her son, or be chased away. 
Who, then, will venture to predict stability in the present 
state of things ? France in its entirety is a grand enigma ; 
may the solution of this enigma not prove a miserable dream. 

Paris, May 6, 1848. 



LETTER XVIII. 

It has been said that great occasions always bring forth 
great men, and certainly the English, the French and the 
American revolutions would seem to corroborate the apo- 
thegm. Is it, then, that the present is not a great occasion 
in France, or that its abortions are as yet only the precursors 
of a Cromwell, a Bonaparte or a "Washington ? I am aware 
that it is impossible for me to escape the condemnation of 
many persons, when I say that in my eyes the occasion does 
not appear great, because there is no honest and high-wrought 
enthusiasm in the contest now going on, which is not between 
mighty principles, as those of Monarchy and Republicanism, 
but between men and their own convictions — between men, 
rashly, yet fearfully seeking for what they neither love nor 
comprehend — convictions which are contradicted by words 
and works whenever these are open to the world's inspection. 

By your courtesy, I was allowed, a few days since, to de- 
clare through The Times, my unbelief in the existence here 



72 

of materiel adequate to the constitution of a good and lasting 
Republic ; and I would now gladly avail myself of the same 
medium to inquire if, so far as has yet been shown, any rea- 
sonable confidence can be placed in the personel depended up- 
on for attaining the desired end? Have the prominent actors 
on the last three months' scenes been wise and consistent in 
counsel — discreet and brave in conduct ? or have they, by 
the tendency of their legislative acts, rather impoverished the 
upper and middle classes without bettering the condition of 
the humble, and leveled down the mass of millions without 
leveling up any portion of it ? Government, or, more prop- 
erly speaking, its fantastic shape, has been in France, nothing 
but a fiction since the 24th of February. The national ma- 
chine has been going on from that date through the momen- 
tum previously imparted to it. But the momentum is fast 
dying away, and who shall breathe into the collapsing body 
the breath of life ? The late Minister for Foreign Affairs 
and I need not say, the ablest member of the present Execu- 
tive, was, and perhaps still is, the centre of most men's hopes ; 
but what proof, I would like to know, has he thus far given of 
being the man of his day — the man upon whom a great oc- 
casion, if, as some say, it be great, calls to turn its exigencies 
with a master's hand to his own account and his country's 
good ? He can charm the ear, it is true, with brilliant peri- 
ods, but has he ameliorated, in jot or tittle, the condition of 
France? Nero, too, could iiddle in exquisite fashion, but did 
he thereby lessen the horrors of burning Rome ? History 
does not say so ; and history will tell, or I am much mistaken, 
that M. de Lamartine, in his poetical inaptitude for impor- 
tant political emergencies, has let slip unimproved one of 
those glorious, and almost heaven-sent, opportunities to save 
the body politic, which rarely occur more than once in the ca- 
reer of the most fortunate of public men. 



73 

Poeta nascitur non Jit ; and I am almost persuaded that 
the same may be said with equal truth of a statesman. M. de 
Lamartine seems to be a grand homme d'etat manque ; and 
not being a man of the sword, what detracts from his useful- 
ness is, that he lacks the early drilling, so common, and 
thought to be so necessary, to politicians in general. He 
showed that he was not up to his work, when, on the famous 
lGth of April, he would have passively succumbed before in- 
sensate Eadicalism, and suffered himself to be destroyed, had 
it not been for the presence of mind and prompt decision of 
General Changarnier, who — and not M. Ledru Rollin, as that 
gentleman has repeatedly boasted — caused to be sounded 
the rappel general, by which many a life was saved. He 
came into the National Assembly with an astounding popular- 
ity, on the strength of which he might, in the strictest honor, 
have permitted events to float him clear off, and far above the 
false position where several of his colleagues had planted 
themselves ; he might, without an effort, have allowed the 
skirts of his virgin executive mantle to become cleansed of 
the stains cast upon them by decrees and circulars, which 
everybody knew, notwithstanding his declarations to the con- 
trary, he disapproved ; and, instead of joining in the false and 
feeble but frequent cry, " There are no parties ! " he might, by 
mere force of circumstances, have been the leader of a pow- 
erful party, which would have smothered every other long 
enough to ensure success to the Republican experiment, if 
present success had been within the compass of human means. 
But, in place of this, what has come to pass? The people's 
choice — their first choice — trembling for a popularity so 
suddenly achieved, has " loved his own barn better than their 
house ;" untrue to himself, timorously or deceitful, he fell upon 
the neck of men whose Radical toils will embarrass or choke 
him in the end ; he feared, lest he might not be able to draw 



74 

it back again, to thrust out his arm to its full length, unless 
supported by those that, already tried by him, had been found 
wanting; in a word, he shrank from making himself the 
Strong head of a strong body ; and the first instalment of his 
reward he instantly received from the hands of those who, in 
creating an Executive, justly preferred others before him. 
Hence I conclude that the man has not yet arisen who is 
sufficiently stout of heart, honest of purpose and wise withal, 
to drive and cheek betimes the spirit which sways the million, 
while it is to be lamented that so many miscreants are daily 
turning up, whose labor of love it is to precipitate or retard, as 
the fiend of mischief may prompt, the course of events which 
might conduce to internal order and external peace. So that 
it must be avowed that the hearts of many fail. 

Marat, who was no fool whatever else he might have been, 
thus wrote in a paper called L Ami du Pen pie, under the date 
of May 17th, 1792 : — " There is nothing under the sun so ridi- 
culous as folly and boasting joined together; and, unhappily, 
this is the indelible characteristic of Frenchmen, who are in- 
capable of foreseeing or appreciating anything, and whom 
nature appears to have destined to be the eternal dupe and 
victim of a silly credulity." Napoleon, too, no ordinary ob- 
server of mankind, it will be admitted, in his Maximes et Pen- 
sees du Prisonnier de Ste. ffelene, spoke of his countrymen as 
follows : — " They cannot have a Republic in France. The 
sincere Republicans there are idiots — the rest are in- 
triguers." 

And does it not seem that those two men said what at least 
looks like truth, when we are told that, in the order of things 
contemplated, opinion tends towards a hydra-headed Execu- 
tive — a monster, both in nature and art, and to a one-sided 
Legislature, which, for want of the counterbalancing power of 
an upper house, its own popular violence will infallibly 
destroy ? 



75 



I had written thus far for yesterday's mail, when at 4 
o'clock, hearing the generate, I repaired to the spot where I 
knew that the next act in the play, whether tragical or comi- 
cal, would come off. I will not intrude details upon you, but, 
by your leave, will transcribe in a few words the impression 
made upon me by the scene I witnessed. The decent per- 
sons of all classes, I thought, looked heartily weary of things 
as they are, and as though they would soon be in the" humor 
to hail with joy any one, whether of Royal or other blood, by 
whose agency order and industry might be restored ; and I 
was the more convinced of this because the better I am in- 
formed the surer I feel that though there are Republicans 
here enough to do much harm, there are not enough to do 
any good now ; and that a Republic without Republicans, 
good and many, is at all times just as impossible, as is Paris 
at the hour wherein we live, without its princes, its palaces, 
and its countless other gewgaws, which must yet for years fill 
up the gap between the visionary hopes of its changeful in- 
habitants and their reasonable expectations. 

Paris, May 1G, 1848. 



LETTER XIX. 

Traditionally speaking,, it is very easy to raise the 
Devil, but somewhat difficult to lay him, and the experience 
of the last few days in Paris has not belied the time-worn 
saw. 

Who caused the insurrection which openly declared itself 
on Friday morning, and who were the occasion of it, is very 
well known. The former call themselves pure Republicans, 



76 



and are as correct and definite in their ideas of a Republic as 
are Brazilian monkeys in their notions of a steam-engine. 
They are nothing more or less than pure revolutionists, whose 
fancy always sees a higher steep, and is sure to " fall on the 
other side." The latter went by the name of Executive Gov- 
ernment, and simply did what they ought not to have done* 
leaving undone what it was their duty to perform. 

The national workshops had been established. They were 
an accomplished fact, bad as it was. How to get rid of them 
was the question. No one denied that there were within 
their walls hundreds of formats liberes, and hundreds upon 
hundreds of mauvais sujets ; but then there were also among 
these outcasts of society many honest workmen, who, with 
their families, had been flung upon the pave, not for want of 
will to work, but for want of work to do. Now, was it the 
part of wise men — nay, was it not the act of fools, to throw 
some thousands of desperate, though involuntary, paupers 
into the arms of double their number of unscrupulous vaga- 
bonds, to be used according to the pleasure of a few designing 
knaves ? And yet this has been done ; and, without a figure 
of speech, blood has in consequence of it been made to flow 
from human fountains, like waste water, thiough the streets 
of Paris. 

It is well ascertained that large sums of money have been 
at the disposition of insurgent leaders, and hence I have 
heard it argued again and again, that it was not poverty which 
drove their followers to arms. But it is no less certain that 
by the rash and sudden attempt of the Executive Govern- 
ment to disperse the occupants of the workshops, good and 
bad, the people were excited to rebellion ; and there is no 
evidence to show that these secret funds were forthcoming in 
the shape of bread before the moment for devoting them to 
the work of destruction had arrived. 



77 



All Frenchmen of honor and sentiment, deeply as they de- 
plore the frightful loss of life, are still more humiliated at the 
barbaric mutilations, hangings, and decapitations of prisoners 
which have taken place ; and it is with shame they acknowl- 
edge that even poison has not been wanting among the instru- 
ments of death. 

Religion has often suffered in the name of religion ; Liberty 
has had its turn ; why should Republicanism hope to escape a 
similar fate ? 

Paris, June 26, 1848. 



LETTER XX. 

As the present is a moment of general, and more than 
ordinary, disquietude throughout France, and as some- 
thing like a crisis seems approaching, it appears to me not 
impossible that a few observations upon the actual state of 
things here, from the pen of an American looker-on may be 
acceptable to you. 

The time has been, and that not long ago, when indignant 
Europe set its armed heel upon the very heart of this glori- 
ous but distracted country, when her territory was torn from 
her like the limbs from a traitor to the common good, and when 
her throne was disposed of as if everybody except her own 
children had a right to a voice in the matter. But still there 
was then an obvious way of escape. Now, however, although 
no strange legions are at her gates, either to curtail her pro- 
portions or bid her bow before a sovereign of foreign dicta- 
tation, yet are there within the limits of the land such ele- 



78 



ments of strife and confusion, so faint is the spirit of self- 
sacrifice, and so wrapt in darkness is the future, that I some- 
times picture to myself the prelude to the springing of a 
mine. 

Because manufactories are not all at a dead stand, as they 
were, and hecause the generate is not sounded night and day, 
as it was, some fondly hope that commerce is reviving and 
that tranquillity will endure. But such persons seem to for- 
get that men cannot go naked now-a-days, as they would have 
to do if woollen-mills were closed and tanneries abandoned, 
and that even in the worst of tempests there are sometimes 
intervals when the sun may shine and the grass will grow. 

I need not say that now is one of those perilous hours in 
which the man of his age, if such there happen to be — the 
creature of occasion — springs from the ranks, and all men 
hail him master. But alas! no one has yet answered to the 
pressing call, and the ill-modelled and improvised Republic 
is tolerated only as a flimsy raft is clung to by the helpless 
fugitives from a sinking ship. France will not emerge from 
her present troubled condition till, the reign of false ideas 
over, a religious spirit, joined to an iron will and a mighty 
arm, comes to the rescue. 

In one month's time from this, as you know, a President is 
to be chosen by the French people, and the two most promi- 
nent candidates for the highest office in the country are 
Prince Louis Bonaparte and General Cavaignac — the for- 
mer acknowledged on all sides to be a man of very ordinary 
talent, and the latter accredited in no quarter as possessed of 
commanding excellence. To one or the other of these, prob- 
ably, is the fate of liberal institutions in France, and, by rela- 
tion in some sort, throughout the Continent of Europe, to be 
confided for several years. If the nephew of the Emperor be 
the successful competitor — and Ids chance is not the worst — 



79 

nobody, as I have ever heard, dreams of his contenting him- 
self with a simple Presidency of four years, to give place at 
its termination to some rival of less pure blood. He will make 
his chair a throne, say his partisans openly, or, at least, will 
try to do so. And with four-fifths of the army to lean on, 
not to mention one-half of the National Guards, with majorities 
in most of the Departments, — disgusted, as they are, at ex- 
perimental governments, — to sustain his pretensions, and 
with many of the Legitimists (be their motives fair or foul) 
to holster him up the steep of power, what, it is asked, can 
stand between him and greatness? Nothing, literally noth- 
ing, I fear, if the election were to take place tomorrow ; but 
with thirty days to work in, with every arm brought skil- 
fully to bear, and with political existence, if not something 
else cpiite as dear, upon the issue, General Cavaignac's party, 
if it die, will die, I doubt not, " with harness on its back. " 

Should universal suffrage put the princely aspirant at the 
nation's head, he being the younger, and therefore more fa- 
vored exponent of popular power, his position in regard to 
the Assembly would be decidedly a vantage ground. Hence 
evil is apprehended, for it is no secret that between the two 
there exists neither sympathy nor love. But failing a choice 
by the people, should the name of Bonaparte 1 be presented to 
this same hostile Assembly, backed by a number of votes far 
exceeding any given to other candidates, the curious question 
then would arise, " Will the Representatives of the people re- 
ject the nominee of a majority of the people ?" They dare 
not, I suspect. But whether they dare or not, their situation 
will be painfully awkward ; for in one case they must bid de- 
fiance to their constituents, and, in the other, their constitu- 
ents' last choice will bid defiance to them as soon as he feels 
himself at home in his new place. A second Chamber then, 
would not be amiss, I ween. 



80 

On the other hand, supposing General Cavaignac becomes 
President of the Republic, whether by the votes of the peo- 
ple or by those of the Assembly, wherein does the future as- 
sume a brighter aspect, except it may be, by the deferment 
of the evil day ? To create for any good purpose, one must 
have suitable materials wherewith to work. But, saving the 
red or rabid Republicans — a race of men whose creed in 
all countries, in America as well as in Europe, is subversion, 
and whose religion is revolution, who scoff at opposing ma- 
jorities, however legitimate, and laugh at every knot which 
the knife can cut — all here that are not enemies to a Repub- 
lic, are friends to it by persuasion only, and not by conviction. 
I speak advisedly, for, besides the best information to be ob- 
tained in the capital from all classes of persons, the facts 
which have reached me through trustworthy channels from 
the Departments lead to the belief that the people put no 
heart, and less faith, in the present attempt at self-govern- 
ment. They are willing to let the thing run its course, 
whether it come to an end in four years or in as many months 
or days ; but that they are nothing more than willing, and in 
many instances hardly that, is evident from the indifference, 
not to say reluctance, with which they go to the polls. Not- 
withstanding this-spiritless humor, however, there are serious 
apprehensions, that the triumph of no party will effectually 
secure the blood of a deluded populace from being again 
vainly shed upon a soil, which, till now, has brought forth 
scarcely any fruits worthy the cause of rational liberty. 

The twenty-second Constitution having been pompously 
feted the day before yesterday, we are now to see if it will an- 
swer the purposes for which it was designed better than its 
predecessors ; we are now to learn if its saving virtues be 
sufficient to preserve from anarchy a nation " two-thirds of 
whose population are in a state of complete ignorance, and 



81 



only one fourteenth part capable of reading and writing cor- 
rectly."* It is now to be decided how one Assembly alone, 
which is sovereign, and a Chief Magistrate, who is subject to 
none, can get on together. One of them must certainly go to 
the wall ; and which of the two it shall be, the character of 
the individual first raised to the presidency will determine. 
But what sort of a Republic does this suppose? 
Paris, Nov, 14, 1848. 



LETTER XXI. 

Since last February Paris has never been so tranquil 
in appearance — perhaps in reality — as it is at present; 
but, at the same time, never has it been in a state of more 
perplexing uncertainty, politically speaking, as to what the 
morrow is to bring with it. Seldom will any one now ven- 
ture an opinion of the future, so constantly has the unforeseen 
forestalled the probable ; whereas till very lately the whole 
world seemed turned into political prophets. Men, too, like 
events, have belied every guess. From the poet-revolution- 
ist, who, notwithstanding his words of fire and deeds of dar- 
ing, fell from his full-blown popularity flatter than ever did 
he of the waxen wings from his ambitious soaring, to the 
General Dictator, who owed his rise and fall to two of his 
nearest kinsmen's memory — from one to the other, including 
all the intermediate mote-like existences, which revelled in 
the sunshine of their little hour, all have come in such quick 
succession, and so departed, that one can hardly fancy he 

* France, her Governmental, Administrative, and Social Organization, Ex- 
pose/1 and Cons'dercd. James .Madden, publisher, London, 8 Leadenball- 
street. 1847. 2d edit., part 2d, chap. 2d, page 3d. 

4 



82 



has witnessed other than the representation of a play, and, 
too, of an ill-played play, no single actor having been fully 
equal to the part assigned him or by him assumed. 

Occasion then having called in vain for some one to shape 
it to wise ends and purposes, for lack of the reality a name 
has filled the void — a great man's name, a solitary heritage, 
which has swayed more votes by millions than its gigantic 
owner ever enticed or wrung to meet his proud demands, 
when life, and rule, and royalty were his. 

A few months gone by, the people delegated their sovereign 
power — so the phrase went — to some hundreds of represen- 
tatives — a power which it is not denied still subsists in all 
its sovereign integrity, and which, logically regarded, renders 
the President incapable, except as a mere subject, of either 
good or evil action. His election was evidently premature, 
or his masters have outstaid their time. And it is this ill- 
defined position of parties, and consequent incertitude of 
rights, even more than unskilfulness and impetuosity, that 
caused the late lamentable derangement in the Cabinet, the 
details of which, as they came to me from one of the Minis- 
ters, I am able to give you with perfect accuracy. 

It appears that the numerous reports respecting the occa- 
sion of M. de Malleville's resignation of office are for the 
most part fabulous, the sole difficulty between the President 
and himself having risen out of an inopportune demand un- 
constitutionally urged and insisted on by the former. The 
Minister of the Interior had received a letter from the Elysee 
Nationale, requiring him to confirm by his signature the ap- 
pointment of prefects to two Departments, and of a director- 
general to the Musee ; to which he replied, that as soon as 
the proposition had been entertained by the Ministry in Coun- 
cil, which would be in the course of a few days, he would 
hasten to return an answer. This took place on Thursday, 



83 



the 28th, in the evening or late in the clay — probably after 
dinner. The President, far from being satisfied with the re- 
sult of his missive, immediately wrote a second to this effect : 
— "I am much surprised at the contents of the letter received 
by me from the Ministry of the Interior ; I require that the 
nominations made by me be signed by the Minister himself 
within two hours : (je Ventends etje le pretends) — so I mean, 
and so shall it be." Whereupon a Council of Ministers being 
summoned, and the facts communicated to them, it was unani- 
mously decided to send in a joint resignation, which was 
straightway done, the despatch reaching its destination at 11 
o'clock, P. M. Instantly the high functionary to whom it was 
addressed rushed off to the assembled Council, comme un homme 
effare, to use the words of my informant, made all sorts of 
excuses, pleaded his ignorance of forms and facts on account 
of his foreign education, offered to tear his offensive letter to 
pieces, and, in short, humbled himself completely, to induce 
the holders of the portfolios to retain them, or at least to defer 
their final decision till the next day. His prayer was success- 
ful so far as a postponement was concerned, owing partly, it 
is thought, to the vote on the salt-tax which had passed that 
afternoon, and on the morrow, as is now known, an arrange- 
ment was concluded. M. de Malleville, however, did not sub- 
scribe to it, because the President refused a condition which 
he would have imposed, that the three candidates for office, 
already rejected by himself personally, should never be again 
proposed to the Council, even for consideration. 

The present aspect of affairs in France, though it can no 
more be relied on than can the face of the Atlantic at the au- 
tumnal equinox, seems to look towards the attempted perma- 
nent abiding of Prince Louis in the chief ruler's place during 
his natural life ; yet those who voted for him through hate to 
General Cavaignac, and detestation of the Eepublic, are evi- 



84 

dently beginning to doubt the wisdom of their choice. The 
Bonapartists of the Morrow, agape with wonder at the facil- 
ity of their victory, are stupidly inquiring, " What is next to 
come ? " while those of the Eve are already struggling with 
might and main for the accomplishment of their hearts' desire 
— a Presidency beyond four years for their leader to begin 
with, and then, as circumstances may favor them, something 
with a brighter name. 

Even now, daily deputations and petitions arrive from the 
provinces, praying that the Republic may be changed into an 
Empire ; and as the candidate for his uncle's throne does not 
want ambition, it is very like that before long he will take 
some step or other which will eventually lead the way to the 
restoration of a Bourbon. 

Paris, Jan. 3, 1849. 



LETTER XXII. 

I doubt much whether the following letter will meet 
with your approbation ; but perhaps there is no better way 
of arriving at the truth, (at which all must aim, and which 
must come out sooner or later), than to allow every looker-on, 
who has no motive for perverting it, to speak plainly his con- 
victions, provided he do so with becoming propriety. 

The world, we know, is proverbially called ill-natured ; 
yet it does not seem to have proved itself so in regard to the 
present Chief Magistrate of the French nation. Judging from 
its indulgence towards him, one may waste his youth in 
dreams, his manhood in folly, and, so that he avoid all forfeit 
to what is loosely termed the code of honor, it is never too 
late for him, should happy chance betide his steps, to draw 



85 



forth plaudits from the mob, and take the place which favor, 
fate or fortune may assign him. This may be well or ill ; 
but in the eyes of such as are not wholly strangers to the tor- 
tuous windings of worldly policy, doubt and mistrust must 
ever mingle with the brightest hope, whenever middle age's 
wisdom springs at once from infancy to maturity only upon 
the opportunity offering of some unexpected material pros- 
perity. 

I confess that I have no faith in Louis Napoleon's love, or 
fidelity or good intent, towards the new-born Republic over 
which he has been called to preside. I lay myself open to no 
charge of disi-espect in saying that his oaths and protestations 
I consider as no more worthy of reliance than were those of 
his Great Uncle. On his advent to power he was no longer 
a young man, and the time past of his life more than suffices 
to fill me with dread for the future. That he aims, and has 
always aimed, at a throne, or something akin to it, for himself 
and his heirs, is universally believed ; that the coveted prize 
has been invitingly presented to him by occasion more than 
once within a twelve-month is acknowledged on all hands ; 
but that, grown cautious by having twice overleaped himself, 
he is content to go on steadily, instead of clutching at a leap 
the imperial gewgaw, is too clear to be questioned. 

The close observation of months, added to what has lately 
come to my knowledge, induces me to believe, that the army 
is generally well-disposed, though it is no longer enthusiastic, 
for him, as it was last December; for, on finding that he em- 
ployed himself in little else than making journeys and speeches, 
and in writing letters to subordinate agents of his own, un- 
acknowledged by the French Government, instead of de- 
voting his whole soul to measures of utility and vital impor- 
tance within his proper province, its affection, so sudden in 
its rise, as suddenly subsided ; and now, should a critical mo- 



86 

ment arrive, those on whom at all times must be his chief 
reliance are quite capable of demanding, " What has this 
man done, that he should reign over us, and what is the vic- 
tory to which he has ever led us ?" Still there is a portion of 
the Line which is said to be devoted to him. It is composed 
of those soldiers who, having passed a long time in Africa, 
separated for years from their families, have lost in no incon- 
siderable degree the habits and ideas of civilized life, which 
very naturally change to blood-thirstiness and a wild manner 
of thinking, whenever there happens to be a too close and too 
long continued intercourse with half-savage adversaries of 
the Desert. And it is on the love of such, if of any, that the 
legal representative of a glorious name must depend in the 
last extremity. 

As are the rank and file, so are the subordinate officers of 
all the African legions, and, with few exceptions, even the 
chiefs themselves. Among the Generals, emphatically de- 
nominated "Africans," Cavaignac is, perhaps, the only one 
who has not completely fallen into the Arab way of life. La- 
moriciere is a legitimist both by descent and antecedents, 
and by consequence is in heart the reverse of all that is re- 
publican. He lent himself, nevertheless, with all his energy, 
to the Cavaignac Ministry, and when it had fallen, though he 
indulged for a space in a sort of brooding discontent, 
yet, on presenting himself at the Elysee, having been re- 
ceived with open arms by its new occupant, he consented to 
forget his prepossessions altogether, or, at least, to forego 
them for a season. This general has great facility of speech, 
but his talents as a warrior are not regarded as super-eminent, 
and he has the reputation of not being sparing of blood. At 
one time he was even clamorous in his expression of repub- 
lican opinions, and, previously to his flattering reception in 
the Faubourg St. Honore, no terms were too strong for the ut- 



87 



terance of his hatred to the Russian dominion, which he pro- 
nounced to be the eternal enemy of civilization. No sooner, 
however, was the mission to St. Petersburgh held temptingly 
before his eyes, than, much to the astonishment of everybody, 
he eagerly accepted it, and, on his presentation at that Court, 
equally surprised the monarch and all about him by the ex- 
treme adulation which he unsparingly lavished in the impe- 
rial presence. Bedeau, who is considered to be more capable 
than any other man of his own rank, is without political im- 
portance, and is, moreover, a partisan of the Count de Paris. 
He is, however, of too indolent a nature to be of much value 
to any one, and in his tastes is too literary ever to become a 
favorite with the soldiery. His passion is to remain secluded 
at home, and he loves not to be interrupted. Changarnier is 
simply a ban sabreur. As he did not go to Africa till his for- 
tieth year, he is, with the exception of Cavaignac, the least 
savage of all his contemporaries. Yet he shrinks not at the 
sight of blood, and his own interests are the alpha and omega 
of his rule of conduct. Energy is the striking characteristic 
of this man, in whom dwells not a particle of scrupulosity. 
There is no command his chief could give which he 
would not obey, if obedience were called for by occasion, and 
suited his own proper views. He would not hesitate, for in- 
stance, to prostrate himself before His Holiness to-day, and 
remorselessly to send him to his last account tomorrow. Not- 
withstanding his temporary devotion to the Prince-President, 
however, General Changarnier would rather see the Duke de 
Bordeaux at the Tuileries, than the nephew of the Emperor 
at the Elysee. 

Not one of all these generals has the entire confidence of 
the army, which has seen them fighting only against Arabs ; 
nor is there one of them in whom it would unreservedly trust, 
were a European war to arise. Bugeaud alone, possessed 



88 



the soldier's affection, find lie alone heartily advocated the 
cause of Louis Bonaparte. But, unhappily for that cause, 
which has not many true friends, his course is finished. The 
recent conqueror of Rome, too, had a certain degree of influ- 
ence in the ranks, on account of the prestige of his family 
name, but he was adroitly sent upon a worse than bootless er- 
rand, the execution of which, it is needless to say, has not in- 
creased his popularity. I am aware that an attempt has 
seriously been made to cast the blame of the Soman expedi- 
tion from off the shoulders of the President by a supereroga- 
tory ascription to him of a most reluctant assent to that un- 
toward measure ; and thence it is argued that he could have 
taken little or no part in the appointment of the officer who 
was to command it. But it is labor lost to tell the world, that 
a Ministry which, at the moment of demanding funds to send 
troops to Civita Vecchia, was in opposition to a constituent, 
that is, an omnipotent assembly, could have accomplished its 
purpose, had it not been supported by the good will of its 
chief. 

It is very possible, and by some persons thought highly 
probable, that by a timely modification of the Constitution 
the President will be allowed to remain where he is and what 
he is, even after the expiration of his present term of office ; 
by many, too, it is believed that he will long be kept from 
falling by the counteracting forces of different parties, not one 
of which is, or is likely to be, strong enough to risk itself sin- 
gle-handed against all the rest ; but if it be his intention to 
make himself Emperor, or ruler for life, whatever be the title 
preferred, it is in the eastern provinces of France that he 
stands the best chance of success, for in those of the west his 
reception, during the tour lately completed, was anything but 
flattering to his aspiring hopes. 

If he were not a man who habitually feels his way, where, 



89 



to effect his purpose, he should take a bold bound at once, he 
might, perhaps, the time being well chosen, organize at Stras- 
burg or Metz a plan for having himself proclaimed the legal 
heir of the Empire, and then, by telegraphic communication 
having produced a corresponding movement at Paris, his 
point would be gained, for the moment at least, provided the 
army could be induced to side with him. And this last con- 
dition, it may be, he could count upon with reason, for Gen- 
eral Changarnier, whose influence on the military is not fee- 
ble, with a Marshal's staff within his grasp, and promised 
honors in perspective, would stop at no obstacle. But I doubt 
much, after having missed such occasions as those of January 
the 29th, and June the loth, especially the latter, whether 
Louis Bonaparte has quickness and decision sufficient skil- 
fully to play the part proposed. Yet an attempt of some sort 
or other on his part, and at a moment least expected, is not 
impossible, for his peculiar characteristic is a caution which, 
carried to excess, frequently changes to extreme rashness, 
taking the whole world by surprise. The Strasburg and Bou- 
logne exploits are examples of this. Had he been elected in 
the first instance President for life, he might have gone on 
contentedly forever, as he is now a king in all but name ; but, 
with old debts weighing on him sufficient to sink a Spanish 
galleon if turned into bullion, he must be more simple than 
the simpleton who attributes to him such patriotic disinterest- 
edness, if he ever quits the Elysee without a struggle, to take 
refuge in a furnished lodging here or in London. 

It must be admitted, even by his enemies, among whom I 
neither am, nor, being a foreigner, have a right to be, that the 
President is not without a certain sort of merit, and that his 
mettle is beyond question ; but, like capricious coursers, whose 
bottom and speed are ill-proportioned, he requires no slight 
persuasives to spur him into action. If when heated by 

4* 



90 



words and wassail, which are the tongue's familiars in the ban- 
quet-hall, he should take a leap in a blaze of light that men 
not less bold, but wiser far, would hardly dare even under 
the deep obscurity of a well-concerted conspiracy, I, for one, 
should in no way be surprised. Never forgetful of his one 
great object — self, the moment an office becomes vacant, be 
it high or low, one of his creatures is immediately thrust for- 
ward as a candidate, and such is his persistence in this course 
that his Ministers prefer keeping in their places old employes, 
though not exactly of their own way of thinking, rather than, 
by removing them, make room for new levies of Bon- 
apartists. 

Of late he seems to have preferred his own will, or that of 
those with whom he is the most intimate, to the counsel of his 
constitutional advisers. And his intimates, unhappily, are not 
such men as inspire with unbounded confidence his best 
friends. His entourage is composed of persons who are not 
tolerated by real greatness, except at a distance. His very 
family, indeed, is in itself a living proof that Heaven never 
intended mediocrity like theirs for the permanent governance 
of France. Napoleon, son of the ex-King Jerome, has never 
up to the present day, given in action any promise of future 
usefulness. Pierre, son of Lucien, has all the faults of the 
Corsican ; his brother Lucien, though energetic and master of 
his passions, is fierce in temper, and " with liver burning 
hot." Lucien Murat is a Ion vivant, and, lacking the means 
whereby to minister to his tastes, he has been in season and 
out of season, at his cousin's palace, crying u Give, give !" till 
at last he is not sent empty away. 

It is evident, then, that no effectual aid from any relative 
of his own, can be securely reckoned on by the President, if a 
throne or a perpetual dictatorship be the goal he has in view. 
Upon the army, therefore, or the Assembly, or the general 



91 



sympathy of the country, must centre his entire hope. The 
disposition of the army, as we have already seen, is a matter 
of the greatest doubt. That of the Assembly will be better 
understood if we examine its component parts. First, then, 
come the Legitimists, whose eyes and hearts are steadily 
fixed on the to-be-crowned head of another Henry. Next the 
Orleanists, who will listen to no change that does not benefit 
the Count de Paris. After them the Republicans — the sin- 
cere Republicans, of whatever shade, to whom all endear- 
ments of all parties are but sounding brass or a tinkling cym- 
bal. Following in order are the Roman Catholics — the big- 
ots, "par excellence, I mean — who will support that man best, 
on whose favor their clergy can most rely. And last of all, 
the Bonapartists, who in number do not exceed three score. 
From among all these a large majority can always be ob- 
tained to resist every act of violence proceeding from the 
blood stained quarter of the Reds ; but should imperial pre- 
tensions, or the like, ever be proffered for the Assembly's 
consideration, poor indeed would be the minority to save 
them from falling still-born to the ground. 

The national enthusiasm for the Bonaparte dynasty is be- 
lieved to have cooled down very much since the elections of 
last December ; and in the National Guard no party, as a 
mere party by itself, can have any well-grounded confidence ; 
for out of Paris it is powerless whenever rapidity and con- 
cert of action are necessary, and within the walls of the cap- 
ital, to say nothing of the number of its legions which have 
been disbanded, the apathy of supreme indifference reigns 
throughout its ranks. 

The present, then, is all uncertainty. The powers that be 
are only on sufferance, and the clearest sighted must feel con- 
founded when he seeks for even the beginning of the end. 

Paris, October 7, 1840. 



92 



LETTER XXIII. 

The news which tomorrow's mail will convey to you 
may excite your curiosity, but hardly your surprise. When- 
ever a Government advisedly irritates a populace, already 
in a state of exasperation, its motive can seldom be other 
than a bad and selfish one. During the last ten or fif- 
teen days we have seen the public hewers of wood engaged 
in cutting down sundry unseemly objects which occupied most 
prominently the best quarters of this city, and were called — 
for what reason I know not — trees of liberty. This gratui- 
tous insult to the lower orders, or, to say the least, this grace- 
less task, had it been necessary, might have been begun and 
finished between the setting and the rising of a single sun. 
But no ; day after day has the work been going tediously on, 
till at last the planters of these very proper symbols of their 
factitious freedom have become — as it was perhaps meant 
they should be — seriously angered and willing to show their 
game. All this day long has the Assembly been in an un- 
quiet state ; grave and moderate men of the majority, with 
whom I have just been conversing, condemn, though in meas- 
ured terms, the Executive ; attroupemens have taken place, 
and wounds, if not worse results, have followed; General 
Changarnier has ordered every officer of the Mat Major to 
be ready to put foot in stirrup at a moment's warning; 
the garrison of the city is under, or ready to take, arms ; and 
the morrow is big with menace. And whence comes all this ? 
Is it that Frenchmen are more difficult to govern than other 
men ? or is it that to misgovern them for a long time, and 
to keep them in the beaten track meanwhile, is beyond the 
power of any man living? 



93 



I know it is the custom to call them fickle, discontented, 
violent and revolutionary ; but when did they ever have a fair 
chance to show their disposition and capacity to live in tranquil- 
lity under the fostering care of a wise, economical and paternal 
Government? Their adored Henry IV. gibbeted them with- 
out mercy if they happened to indulge in an unlawful passion 
for venery ; their Grand Monarquc ground them to the dust 
and used them like stubble to light the furnace of his ambi- 
tion, while their nobles he chastised as though they had been 
so many grown up children ; their first Republic bandied 
them about till the mind of France became but a confused 
mass of ideas jumbled together ; their Emperor, on whose 
glory they still subsist, whipped and spurred them till their 
withers were so wrung that they had no strength even to 
wince ; their two restored Sovereigns (Kings by the grace of 
the Allies and the Duke of Wellington) half a century be- 
hind time, would fain have taught the nation to go crab-wise ; 
their own elected (a lie without the circumstance) but un- 
annointed, of the barricades, gave them, instead of bread, a 
stone which, felled him as they sent it back ; and now, for two 
years past, the Republic of their riper age, has been to them 
a plague and pother, leading them such a dance as to afford 
them neither time nor space for measuring their steps aright. 
And it is because they have not always, with saint-like sim- 
plicity, turned their cheek to the smiter — because while they 
struggled they struck, that they are, forsooth, disturbers of 
the public peace, and the world's pest. 

Affairs were going on here passably well ; commerce, ex- 
ternal and internal, was daily gathering strength ; the public 
securities, even if fitfully, were on the rise ; and yet the pow- 
ers that be, as though men's minds were not already in a suffi- 
ciently feverish state, must needs set their agents to raze a 
few scores of poplars, unsightly to be sure, but perfectly insig- 



94 



niflcant in the eyes of all till the police axes made them so 
many standards of revolt. 

Some persons, wise as the world goes, do not hesitate to 
declare that the President, fearful of Avaiting till his turn of 
tide went by, himself directed this arborous foray, to make of 
it, and its probable consequence, an occasion whereby to serve 
his one great end — a perpetuity of office in his own proper 
person. But difficult as it is to account for causeless prov- 
ocation, I can hardly agree in ascribing to him such fatuity 
as this supposition would imply ; although it is no easy mat- 
ter to calculate, with accuracy, on the motives or movements 
of a man whose deliberately laid schemes thirty minutes 
sufficed to defeat at Strasburg and a third of that time at 
Boulogne ; and who, after going out on the 29th of January, 
to do or die, went only to the place Vendome to return to his 
palace, unable, " like the cat in the adage," to seize the thing 
his heart most coveted. 

Paris, Monday, Feb. 4, 1850. 



LETTER XXIV. 

Poets, they say, are born, not made ; the same may be 
true of orators ; but who ever heard of a political econo- 
mist leaping, Minerva-like, ready for action into this working 
world ? 

If M. Thiers ever made political economy his special study, 
which may be, he skilfully concealed the fact in his late 
speech. Outwardly there was all the brilliancy, transparency 
and brittleness, too, of the Crystal Palace, but inwardly what 
a contrast ! The honorable gentleman descended from the 
tribune amid the plaudits of a host who, as M. Ste. Beuve re- 



95 



marked, in regard to his own free-trade propositions, had never 
heard, or were incapable of comprehending, what was said. 
The orator had it all his own way, for lack of an opponent 
worthy of his powers. But although he is not another Adam 
Smith come to judgment, still, as his intelligence is one not to 
be treated lightly, rather than set him down as a blind leader 
of the blind, I prefer attributing to him a conscience which, 
like that of Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, good, easy man ! " never 
did him any harm." If, however, he really believed all he 
said, then is he another melancholy example of the dangerous 
use that a little knowledge may be put to by a large capacity. 
But I apprehend he knew perfectly well what he was about, 
while discoursing such eloquent fiction respecting free trade 
and protection, which are probably both to him as " leather 
and prunella." Far other matter occupied his thoughts, for 
the truth is he had long seen that the august body of which 
he himself makes no insignificant part, was faring as badly in 
public opinion as did the Government securities in 1848, 
that the glory of its head was departing, and that more than 
its extremities had been besmirched and bemired in its abor- 
tive struggles on a false and slippery ground. He knew, 
therefore, that a gentle fillip would not be amiss to the 
stricken Assembly — that his was the supple tongue which 
could best raise it from its low estate, and, what suited his 
book still better, that in so doing, and as he proposed to do it, 
he would be most effectually serving the interests of Rouen's 
representative, Rouen being, as you know, a hot-bed of pro- 
tection, and its inhabitants M. Thier's constituents. Now, it 
so happened that these highly respectable, but most matter- 
of-fact fellow citizens of his, were beginning to tire of 
their Protean protege, which you may be sure he was epiite 
aware of, and here was an occasion for hitting two birds with 
with one stone, which the adroit self-made man was not likely 



96 

to miss. This, then, is the explication of the antediluvian 
rhapsody lately administered to a congregation ever ready to 
seethe in their own humors, good or bad, when to a chronic 
fever within is applied an unwonted degree of caloric from 
without. 

M. Thiers is, doubtless, a wise man, but he has yet to learn 
that it is not the dearness of bread, but the want of means to 
buy bread, which is at the root of all modern revolutions ; 
and that an anti-protective tariff which shall mete out equal 
justice to all classes is the only means of insuring to France 
that internal tranquillity which strengthens the heart of domes- 
tic industry, and is the life itself of commerce with foreign lands. 

Paris, June 30th, 1550. 



LETTER XXV. 

The internal commerce of this country is flourishing, and 
the foreign trade is not in a bad condition. Here, then, so 
soon after the events of 1848, is proof sufficient, if such were 
wanting, of the prodigious elasticity, the enormous resources, 
and the inexhaustible spirit of the French people. Yet, in 
the face of all this material prosperity, the shadows of the 
possible future becloud the political horizon, not through the 
fault of the population at large, who, if tradesmen, have as 
much as they can do, if manufacturers can give full wages to 
their men, if agriculturists, can, with one or two exceptions, 
easily find a good market, and if day laborers, lack not em- 
ployment; but through the bitter hostility existing between the 
President and the Assembly, to which this country is indebted 
for the almost hopeless uncertainty which wastes the energy 
of man or turns it to desperation. 



97 

At the time that a Constitution was in the process of being 
fabricated bere for the last time, I ventured to suggest in your 
columns the possibility of a strife between the two great Pow- 
ers of tbe State, and the consequent convenience in such a 
case of having a second Chamber, which migbt throw its 
weight of wisdom into the juster scale. That strife has now 
fairly commenced, and, if I am not mistaken, we shall see 
that the President is playing the surer game. For what com- 
parison can there be more striking than that between one 
sovereignty invested in a single man and another personified 
by seven hundred and fifty persons, heterogeneous, selfish, 
and discordant in respect to every condition of thought, wish 
and action ? As well might we test against a given weight of 
metal compactly beaten into a handy shape the same quantity 
diversely tempered in its several different links and then inar- 
tistically jointed together. If we glance, however super- 
ficially, over the history of the last two years, it will be seen 
that, though the President of the French Republic has, in the 
eyes of the wise, been guilty of some imprudent words and 
actions, not to mention a gross political sin or two, yet that he 
appears to have risen high in the good graces of his country- 
men, while the Assembly, worthy of great praise as it is, not- 
withstanding certain spots and blemishes defacing its fair 
fame, has sensibly fallen. The seven hundred and fifty-fold 
entity is thus most clearly proved to be no equal match 
against unity ; and not less manifest is it that, without another 
active and efficient body entering into the political machinery, 
and serving as a compensation-balance, things cannot but go 
awry in France, whether Republicanism or Monarchism be in 
the ascendant. 

Notwithstanding, however, the discomfiture of the multitu- 
dinous branch of national sovereignty, President Bonaparte's 
rise is rather imaginary than real, like that of an island which 



98 

the retiring tide seems to elevate towards the sky, without its 
ever approaching the heavens by a single inch. True, the 
Elysee is weekly crowded with an armed host, that once re- 
garded the Assembly, with General Changarnier for its right 
arm, as the fountain of strength ; true, too, is it, that the 
clergy look with an eye of increasing favor on the elected of 
6,000,000, — thanks to his pastor-like protection ; and not less 
true is it that the magistrature, which at one time turned with 
cold decorum from the face of the Chief Magistrate, now smiles 
upon him, in remembrance of the real or apparent outrage 
committed against it by his rival in the Maugin affair. But 
all this is only a temporary shifting of the political sand. 
The Assembly, in itself or its successors, cannot die except 
with the Republic, but the Presidency is only for four years ; 
and, if the present occupant of the Elysee would but recol- 
lect betimes that a greater man than he once paced its de- 
serted floors, with none so poor as to do him reverence, he 
would not trust too much to his popularity, but, entirely con- 
fiding in his own honesty of purpose and the counsels of the 
wise, he would cease to fret himself with the phantom of a 
General Officer panting for an occasion to do him mischief. 

At this moment, though tomorrow it may not be true, he 
can command a large majority in the Chamber, owing to the 
intestine feuds which, at the country's expense, disgrace that 
body. From good sources of information, I reckon that the 
representatives may be classed as follows : — For President 
Bonaparte, 180 Socialists, 20 moderate Republicans, the fol- 
lowers of General Cavaignac, in opposition to his fellow-Gen- 
eral, and 280 Bonapartists of every shade, — amounting in 
all to 480 ; while for General Changarnier there are 1C>0 Le- 
gitimists, 20 moderate Republicans belonging to his train, 20 
devoted Orleanists, and 00 lukewarm friends of the lately fallen 
family, who go in the steps of M. Mole. These, in number 



99 



260, added to 480, and allowing for the usual absence of 
10 members, make up the complement of 750 ; and if you 
think these data worth publishing, they may be referred to 
hereafter as a matter of curiosity. 
Paris, Jan. 9, 1851. 



LETTER XXVI. 

The French people, as you well know, are not famous for 
constancy of affection to their political idols, which they glo- 
rify one day, cover with pollution the next, and the third cast 
out as unknown gods ; nor for adamantine firmness in attach- 
ment to their political ideas, which they deify and discard with 
an alacrity that would do credit to the best ballet master of 
the Opera. And yet many grave and intelligent men be- 
lieve, or profess to believe, that the Republic has taken such 
deep root in France that it must prevail, not merely eventu- 
ally, which is not impossible considering that the elements of 
monarchy, seriously damaged during the last half century, are 
fast wearing away, but presently, and from this day forth, it 
will go on from strength to strength till its full development 
be attained. In combatting such a notion no argument 
drawn from the history of democracies long since extinct can 
be of much service ; but a momentary reference to a dem- 
ocratic Republic, whose birth, it is true, some persons now 
living can recollect, may be useful in appreciating the vitality 
of the form of government in which this country now rejoices, 
though with tears. 

It has never been denied that political institutions are 
healthful and durable only according as they have naturally 
grown out of the manners and wants of the population among 
which they exist. Thus, the inhabitants of the United States, 



100 

inheriting from their English ancestors the habit of taking 
care of themselves, and needing nothing but to be left to the 
government of their own magistrates, have gone on prosper- 
ing and to prosper in the work of their own hands. Every 
State, county, city and town in America, you need not be> 
told, has always been accustomed to manage its own concerns 
without application to, or interference from, the supreme au- 
thority at the capital. And this self-controling policy is so 
habitual and ingrained wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has 
spread, that it will ever present an insuperable obstacle to the 
successful usurpation of undue authority by any individual. 
Even had Washington consented to be called King, he would 
have been King of nothing save a Republic in fact ; and had 
an hereditary nobility, the necessary consequence and prop of 
Royalty, been created, it could never have maintained itself 
in the absence of the law of primogeniture, which universal 
public opinion — the offspring of equality in civil rights — 
repudiated. The people of the thirteen original Transat- 
lantic States, in the construction of a commonwealth, had only 
to build upon a real and solid foundation made to hand ; but 
in France the reverse of this was the case, when in the last 
century a Republic was proclaimed, and continues so now, 
without any material diminution of the rubbish which must 
be swept away before a trustworthy basis can be found for the 
most dangerous experiment in a nation's history.* The Ex- 

*Perhaps it must be said that the French are not a free people. 
Perhaps the " fashion," to which it ever bows — that successive de- 
velopment of grand ideas of which if is pleased to be proud, is in- 
compatible with the liberty of individual minds. That is not our 
present question. We are merely observing, that a tyrannical reduc- 
tion of the whole mind of France to one formula for the time being, 
and an omnipresent, omnipotent administration — for such it affects to 
be — are almost insuperable difficuliies in the way of a really fiee 
and constitutional government. On this point the testimony of an 
American observer, witnessing with his own eyes the political vicissi- 



101 

ecutive power, securely ensconced in central Paris, like a 
sleepless fly-catcher in the middle of his well-spun web, feels 
and responds to every vibration throughout the artfully 
organized system, which extends from channel to sea, and 
from river to ocean. Its aim has been to keep the Depart- 
ments in leading-strings, and its success to prevent neighbors 
from leaning only on each other for mutual aid and comfort 
in every undertaking, great or small, and to drive them to the 
Minister of the Interior as the sole dispenser of patronage. 
Provincialism has hence become naturally associated with so- 
cial inferiority, sliding easily into vulgarity ; and as vulgarity 
is often carelessly taken for intellectual incapacity, the conse- 
quence is, that the many millions living at a distance from 
the factitious fountain of power, are regarded and treated as 
children even in matters that most deeply concern their daily 
comfort. If, for example, a river is to be bridged, a morass 
drained, or a church erected, more time is lost in negotiating 
at head-quarters for permission to commence the undertaking 
than would suffice in England or America to accomplish the 
same object twice over. Disgusted, doubtless, with all this, 
and, as too frequently happens, expressly educated by as- 

tudes of France, possesses unusual value. The letter of " A States- 
man" on tbe two Republics, which we lately published, deserves to be 
kept in record against the many evil days which French bureauocracy 
has still to bring forth. One passage, in particular, so exactly tallies 
with the complaints we have heard from every province and from ev- 
ery class in France, that we cannot forbear quoting it. After de- 
scribing the habits of self-government, derived from this country, 
which have given such expansive and creative power to the popula- 
tion of the United States, the " States-man" proceeds : — " The Execu- 
tive Power," &c, &c. 

• Hence that perpetual craving after power and position in France, 
that consciousness that a man must be aut Ccesar aut nihil, that di- 
vision of society into officials and revolutionists, partisans of the Pow- 
ers that be or of some other form of government or dynasty — that 
surrender of self, conscience, and intellect on the one hand, and that 
extravagance of political speculation on the other, which distinguish 
France above the rest of the civilized world. — Times. 



102 



piring parents for some official employment, most provincials 
of distinguished talents, instead of honorably addressing them- 
selves for advancement, as is the custom in the United States, 
to their own immediate communities, hasten to the feast of 
good things, whether within the Elysee or elsewhere, at which 
they soon learn to take care of themselves, leaving their 
country, as the motto on their current coin has it, to the " pro- 
tection of God." 

No one ought to feel surprised, then, whenever a revolu- 
tion happens here, and a Republic, the universal panacea 
which haunts the French brain, is announced, that the people 
out of Paris, utterly destitute of political training and with- 
out leaders, as they are, should stand agape and helpless as a 
shipload of passengers in a gale, whose ruthless violence has 
left them without captain or crew. Nor should their help- 
lessness and apparent imbecility be a reproach to their natu- 
ral intelligence, for the system of Centralization, so briefly al- 
luded to above as a curse to the country, has in its long 
course benumbed their faculties and paralyzed their energies 
for every sort of action beyond the little circle of a material 
existence. Neither is this system likely to be soon aban- 
doned, the present Minister of the Interior having very lately, 
to my certain knowledge, fiercely and firmly resisted every 
attempt on the part of the Council of State to modify its op- 
eration. In the absence, therefore, of the very groundwork 
whereon to create and sustain a Republic, how can such a 
form of government endure except while it is kept, as at 
present, from toppling over by the unwilling support of va- 
rious factions, which preserve it from falling only to prevent 
an antagonist still more detested from taking its place ? 

If, however, a Republic has no moral base, not a whit more 
material foundation has a Monarchy to rest upon. For where 
is now to be found an aristocracy which, rich in ancestral names 



103 

and title deeds, can present the only insurmountable barrier 
to the wave of popular violence that in our day so often dashes 
against the throne itself? And even if found, into what por- 
tion of the vasty deep of conflicting interests and insensate 
passions are we to look for that support of public opinion 
which alone can consecrate it in the eyes of the destroying 
Socialist ? 

It seems to me, moreover, that the absence of a disinterested 
public spirit, of an exalted patriotism, furnishes another argu- 
ment against the present peaceful establishment either of a 
Monarchy or a Republic. In other countries we have fre- 
quently seen party distinctions melting away whenever na- 
tional honor or safety were endangered, but here men appear 
to cling to their party with the passion one has for a para- 
mour, while for the land of their birth the affection which an- 
imates them wears a much more legitimate aspect, guiltless of 
all enthusiasm. In the present interneciary struggle, in what 
quarter is a self-sacrificing spirit, an elevated love of country, 
to be discovered ? Is it in the President, who dismissed the fa- 
vorite General of the Assembly, from whom no harm could 
have come so long as his princely word remained inviolate ; 
or in that General himself, who obstinately refused, when his 
mission in the cause of society had been accomplished, a vol- 
untary resignation which he knew would save a world of 
trouble ; or in the majority of the Assembly, which bootlessly 
insulted the Chief Magistrate in the persons of his Ministers ; 
or in its minority, which gleefully exults over the mischief on 
foot, and would no doubt fiddle d la Neron, if the civil edifice 
were in flames. 

The conclusion, then, to which I am forced, in spite of my 
prejudices and predilections, is that a wisely-conducted Re- 
public is beyond the reach of the pi'esent generation of 
Frenchmen ; and that as to a permanent monarchy, one might 



104 



as well attempt to re-invest the nursery's phantom with its 
pristine horrors as to try to hedge about with his hereditary 
divinity a King whose predecessors have been treated like 
felons and vagabonds for the last sixty years. 
Paris, Jan. 18, 1851. 



LETTEE XXVII. 

It is probable that a legitimate substitute for defunct mon- 
archy will be made to do duty here till better times arrive, 
for society revolts at anarchy as much as nature abhors 
a vacuum ; and that this will be replaced by a permanent 
government of some sort or other, for it is not in the nature 
of things that eternal instability, like the brand on the first 
murderer's front, should forever exclude this people from 
the common lot of humanity — a certain degree of tranquillity 
in prospect, without which the Commonwealth must perish 
for lack of individual enterprise. What this substitute is 
likely to be, it now is, — a Bonapartean Democracy, and it 
will exceed in duration, if I mistake not, the expectation of 
most men. 

We gain nothing by giving wrong names to things. That 
is not a Republic where an immediate appeal to the people, 
or the weight of a soldier's sword, are the only remedies in 
case of variance among rival sovereign powers of State. It 
is nothing more nor less than rank democracy, and is in con- 
stant danger of becoming something worse. England is at 
this moment more essentially republican than France ; for 
in that country the people's good is never liable to be wan- 
tonly sacrificed to the caprice of a sovereign, the arrogance 
of a senate, or the fickleness of a popular assembly ; because 



105 

one at least of these three great estates can, even in its own 
proper interests, be always counted on as a conservative 
force, which, backed by the omnipotence of the press, needs 
no aid either from the mob or the army. 

If to the continuance of the actual organization which I 
have supposed it be objected, on the one hand, that the 
Constitution forbids the re-election of President Bonaparte at 
the expiration of his present term of office, and, on the 
other, that an additional and more aristocratic legislative 
body may change the whole face of affairs, I answer, that 
never yet in France was a written instrument an insuperable 
obstacle to a State necessity, either real or imaginary, and 
that as to the creation of an upper house, under whatever 
name, it is the great mass of the common people, and not 
the middle or highest classes, who will oppose it ; such is 
their inherited dread of an aristocracy, even in outward show, 
and so long does it take to root from the popular heart a 
sense of injuries inflicted on the fathers of those now living, 
by men whose gentle nurture should have taught them better 
things. 

The Count de Chambord was once hailed as the dim** 
donne, and if God had saved him from his friends, he might 
have lived to be so hailed again ; but if ever in this country 
any man could rightly be called a God-send, that man is the 
President of the Republic. Hardly is he wanting in a single 
requisite pertaining to the lofty place he occupies, now that 
the notion of empire seems less potent to disturb his wiser 
judgment. He is of imperial blood, and on the clay of elec- 
tion no one of meaner lineage can stand beside him; for,, 
oddly enough, the French, with all their horror of nobility, 
will suffer none of less than princely dignity to rule over 
them. Of well-tried courage and much passive endurance, 
he cannot but be respected, and yet, untrained to war, he can 
5 



106 



never be feared as a military despot. Of infinite sangfroid, 
he has very lately proved himself more than a match for 
the acutest among his countrymen. Older than the rep- 
reesntative of the Orleans dynasty, he cannot be kept in 
leading-strings ; and, not a Bourbon, he is not incapable of 
improvement. Above all, to his name alone, throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, is there a tradition attached. 
Enter the meanest human habitation in the remotest Depart- 
ment, and upon the poverty-stricken walls some memorial, 
however slight, of the great Corsican's glory will be found. 
Of that glory he is the legal inheritor, while its attendant 
evil, so far as he is concerned, sleeps in the tomb of the 
Invalides. But the case is widely different with the two rival 
descendants of a long line of kings. Only within the faded 
halls of legitimacy, or the garish saloons of Orleanism, are 
the Count de Chambord and the Count de Paris spoken of 
or known. Talk of them to the common people of the pro- 
vinces, and their reply will be, " Napoleon's fame is dear to 
us ; the name of Bonaparte belongs to France ; but as for 
those you tell us of — who, and what are they?" In one 
word, the President I believe to be the very man this country 
stands in need of during her troublous ordeal ; and, more 
than that, he is the only man, I am convinced, whom, for the 
time being, she will tolerate. 

Theoretically, and to a certain extent practically, that 
democracy which, with its senseless, because indiscriminat- 
ing, companion, universal equality, originated even before 
the first revolution began in France, will be represented in 
the National Assembly ; but Louis Napoleon, if clever as he 
is reported to be, will, like Caesar in regard to the Roman 
Senate, adi'oitly turn this popular mania to his own profit by 
courting the common people and caressing the army. Not 
that he will ever seek to destroy the representative body, for 



107 



it will occur to him, as a warning example, that even Crom- 
well, though unable to get on with any Parliament, could 
never do without one ; nor need he even feel tempted to do 
so as long as he can subordinate to his will every Assembly, 
however chosen, through the magic virtue of the blood he 
has inherited, and the popularity he thereby enjoys. But, 
among a people who, nationally speaking, have no fixed 
ideas on government, or its best forms, and cannot, therefore, 
be relied upon for an indefinite time, let him beware of the 
imperial purple, •and a life-long presidency, if he loves per- 
manence of power and hopes to see days of happiness ; or 
otherwise, if French history have any truth in it, his last 
state will be as bad as, and perhaps worse than, any he has 
yet experienced. 

Paris, February 5, 1851. 



LETTER XXVIII. 

If I were his countryman, and could without impropriety 
address the Chief Magistrate of the French Eepublic, I 
would, with the most profound respect, do so in some such 
words as these : — 

The position of your Excellency is certainly not an easy 
one, but it is less difficult than that of any other man who 
can aspire to the Presidency of this country at the next 
election; because, to accomplish your purpose — a prolonga- 
tion of power, — nothing is required of you but to wait, and 
instead of active courage, to exercise a patient forbearance. 
While Monarchists, Eepublicans, and Socialists cannot cease 
from agitation without relatively losing ground, and while 
they are consequently in continued danger of committing 



108 



blunders, you alone, by refraining from excess of action and 
by deterring your over-zealous friends from too much speak- 
ing, will be constantly bettering your condition. Your best 
policy for the present, seems to be that which was graph- 
ically called by one of America's greatest statesmen, " a 
masterly inactivity ; " nor do I see any reason why you 
should depart from such policy, even in word — why, as 
some imperiously demand, you should condescend so much as 
to declare, for example, your intention in regard to the elec- 
tions of 1852. The oath of a man and the word of a prince, 
if originally of any value, gain no strength by repetition, 
and an honorable mind shrinks equally from exacting or 
conceding such a sacrifice. But there is such a thing as the 
voluntary surrender of a pledge, and, other means failing, 
even a written Constitution, which neither time has hallowed 
nor custom rendered dear, may, I hold, be honorably nulli- 
fied by the votes of a free people^ when a host of malignant 
Shylocks are on the watch, railing for the forfeit of their 
bond. With faith on your side without works, the French 
people, who once made you their first magistrate for your 
name's sake, will make you so again, gladly rendering back 
your plighted word, because they feel you to be a State neces- 
sity, and instinctively know that in a violent strife of par- 
ties the man who can most surely ward off present calamity 
is their best refuge. This proposition may be a problem in 
the eyes of those who, with M. Guizot, regard a tomorrow's 
Monarchy as the only and omnipotent panacea — "the be-all 
and the end-all here ; " but leave the masses to themselves, 
and in due time they will work it out. The masses are 
proud of the work of their own hands, and as such are you 
regarded by them. They often delight in its overthrow, it 
is true, but they like not that others should do the business 
for them, much less that another object of worship should 



109 



be set up in place of their own. Had you frankly thrown 
yourself upon them from the beginning, eschewing all ultra- 
ism, you might at this moment have safely set every party 
threat at defiance ; and even as it is, no Bourbon can be a 
stumbling-block in your way, for none among the people asso- 
ciate with that time-honored, but also time-dishonored name, 
the idea of such a just measure of liberty as leaves no room 
for licentiousness, nor of that equality before the law which 
pays no respect to persons, nor of that Christian fraternity 
which, grafted on the most amiable sentiments of our feeble 
nature, cannot be trampled out of existence by brute force, 
nor be driven from among men by stupid exaggeration. 
Neither can any of the sons of Orleans come between you 
and the people's favor, for their father's -faults wrought a void 
in the national affection, which not all their own peculiar vir- 
tues will for a long time be able to fill. Nor can statesman, 
general, or politician, now known to us, stand any chance 
beside you, for so limited is the popular information, especially 
in rural districts, respecting the most distinguished among 
them, that to their names, if entered for the Presidental 
course, must be annexed a running commentary explanatory 
of who and what they are ; while to that of Bonaparte need 
nothing be added — not even what the unprompted heart of 
France supplied in 1848 — Nephew of the Emperor, heredi- 
tary enemy of Kings and destroyer of Republics ! 

Most prophetically was it said, a few days since, by the 
journal in which I hope this letter will have the honor of 
appearing, " that to retain the Government, the (French) 
nation must sacrifice the Constitution, or to retain the. Consti- 
tution it must sacrifice the Government ; " and, if we sub- 
stitute for the word " Government," the name of Prince 
Louis Napoleon, there can be but little doubt, it appears to 
me, which of these alternatives will happen, supposing that 



110 



you discreetly leave to others the initiative of what your oath 
of office forhids you to attempt. Only show the world, by 
your obedience to law and respect for a majority of the 
nation, that you love your country better than yourself, and 
through dread of their common enemy — the Red Republic — 
all men of order, irrespective of party considerations, will 
eventually range themselves on your side, and by some 
means or other, shaping the Constitution to their ends, will, 
though perhaps at the very last moment, supplicate you to 
stand up once more a barrier against misrule. 

If I deemed this people as fit for the government they in 
form affect, as I trust they will be, some scores of years 
hence, there would be the strongest reasons in my mind for 
deprecating your re-election ; but, believing you to be one 
of the many instruments in the hand of Providence for con- 
ducting them through their long revolutionary struggle, I 
heartily pray for your success. Not that I think you can 
save France, but that by means of you, France will for 
a time save herself. What she wants of you is a breathing- 
turn which will afford space for her to look about and decide 
on the immediate future — to settle, at least for a season, 
and by a sensible majority of the people, whether, when 
another hour of agony shall arrive — as arrive it will — her 
choice must lie only between the bloody sword of a suc- 
cessful soldier and the blood-colored flag of a triumphant 
demagogue. 

But, for yourself, abstain, I entreat you, from every act of 
violence, however strong be the temptation and however 
subtle the arguments of those around you. Twice have you 
undertaken, and, as I believe, with honest heart, the salva- 
tion of France in your own way ; and twice have you sig- 
nally failed. Beware — even if superstition be no part of 
your Imperial inheritance — of a third essay; for third fail- 
ures are proverbially fatal. 



Ill 



Thus much, Sir — if a Frenchman and permitted so to 
do — would I, with that observance always due to the Chief of 
a State, say to his Excellency the President ; and thus much, 
too, should I be rejoiced to have him hear from any lips, 
not only for his own and his country's sake, but likewise for 
the sake of others, who, strangers like myself, have here 
concentrated for the time being all the dearest interests of life. 

Paris, April 29, 1851. 



LETTER XXIX. 

* If there is one good quality which a Frenchman lacks, it 
is patience. He will try all things in turn, but will hold fast 
to none of them long enough to satisfy all parties concerned 
of the extent of defects to be remedied. A man proverbially 
wise recommended in his time the correction of an erring 
child, but he never said, "Slay him!" The Anglo-Saxon 
race have been in the habit of amending their political off- 
spring, but the Gallic humor, on the contrary, delights in an 
entirely new creation ; and the worst of this peculiar temper- 
ament is, that in any new political experiment, however gross 
and palpable may be its faults, no two parties are ever 
agreed as to the time and means of curing them. I can easily 
understand, when a knot is choking one, why he should cut it, 
but when there is time for untying it I do not perceive the 
wisdom of haste and violence, in spite of law and in defiance 
of prejudice. 

* The following remarks upon the state of parties in France are from the 
pen of our occasional correspondent, "A States-Man," whose opinions as 
those of an intelligent American residing in Paris are deserving of at- 
tention. — Times. 



112 



Different sets of men here, whose political creeds are pretty 
much alike, have been lately trying, with more or less mutual 
good faith, to effect what is called a fusion ; by which, the 
metaphor being dropped, is meant another restoration of mon- 
archy and at a single blow. They have had a fair field, and 
no impediments of muncipal law have bjen thrown in the way 
of their treasonable projects, for treasonable those projects 
certainly are which, in the face of a legally appointed Repub- 
lic, undisguisedly aim at the discomfiture of a President and 
the induction of a King. 

But with all their pains they have made no sensible pro- 
gress, because, among other reasons, they differ, it seems, 
about the division of the expected spoil. Partisans of the 
elder branch of Royalty claim the first fruits of success as 
theirs by right of birth, while those of the younger shoot, un- 
mindful that the same popular breath which made them what 
they were did also unmake them, would fain take their seats, 
too, above the salt at the table of good things in prospect, de- 
spising the crumbs that may chance to fall beneath it. Both, 
however, reckon without their host — the people, who are not 
so ready to be fusione, I suspect, as it is believed. For the 
like mental process has been going on in France since three- 
score years and more which prevailed in the United States 
during their transition from a colonial to an independent ex- 
istence. So long as these owned allegiance to the British 
crown, England — the " old country," as they termed their 
fatherland, — was fondly regarded by them as their home, 
and her King was honored by them as their King; but at the 
present day, wdioever should seek to rekindle in the American 
heart that superstitious reverence for a crowned head without 
Avhich monarchy is "not half made up" would be univer- 
sally treated as an imposter or an idiot. So in France the 
sentiment of loyalty to a Sovereign because he is a Sovereign, 



113 



which in former clays flourished as vigorously here as in Eng- 
land, where it makes part and parcel of every man's nature, 
is wholly extinguished, except among a few incurable Legiti- 
mist dreamers and their Quixotic disciples. And yet, because 
this sentiment once survived in England the fall of a single 
anointed head, it is weakly fancied by these isolated few 
that in their country also it has outlived not only the whole- 
sale butchery of royal and noble personages, but even the 
degradation and defilement of everything pertaining to the 
kingly office and the highest rank. 

But, supposing the heir of the Bourbons at the Tuileries — 
an event quite the reverse of impossible — what would be his 
condition ? To say nothing of more material obstacles at his 
very advent, under what flag could he meet the greetings of 
his countrymen ? "Would he, with the fatal consistency of 
others of the same race, who learn not and forget not, dare to 
raise the colorless banner of his ancestors, and prove faithful 
to the antecedents of his house, or would he envelope his re- 
stored rights in those tri-colored folds of his hereditary ene- 
mies under which they made the conqueror's tour of Europe ? 
And those rights, the divinity of which is his weakness and 
his strength, how could he persuade the present race of 
Frenchmen that they are more than human ? His task would 
be that of a giant, his tools those of a dwarf. Even Napole- 
on, with all his victorious wreaths new planted on his youth- 
ful brow, with a whole continent trembling beneath his blows, 
and with an army in his right hand compact and irresistible as 
a Theban phalanx, — even he was sorely perplexed to bring 
order out of disorder, to assign his proper place to every man, 
while he himself set things by the rule, and kept them so. 
And how long did he endure ? What chance then of main- 
taining his position, much less of doing good, under circum- 
stances not dissimilar to those in which that man of iron 
5* 



114 



mould and will was placed, has a quiet gentleman, between 
thirty and forty years of age, nurtured by tender hands, full 
of book-learning, if you will, but wholly uninstructed by the 
world's rough teaching, — what earthly chance, I ask, has he 
of restoring to troubled France the repose she needs, or to 
humbled Royalty the dignity it wants ? 

No, the time of Henry V. is not yet, and a King, therefore, 
being for the present out of the question, the popular choice 
at the next presidential election must necessarily fall upon the 
actual occupant of the Elysee, or it will decide nothing more 
than what names are to be submitted for preference to the 
Assembly's wisdom ; because, barring a miracle, no candidate 
eligible hy lata, either from the ranks of order or disorder, can 
possibly unite in his person a sufficient number of votes to se- 
cure his election at the polls. If the people declare by a large 
majority that they will have Prince Louis Bonaparte to pre- 
side over them for another term, all except the Socialists will 
array themselves by his side, and there will be nothing worse 
than an emeute to crush ; but under all other conceivable cir- 
cumstances a civil war is highly probable, if, forsooth, there 
be civil virtue enough in the total absence of political train- 
ing to supply such a sharp remedy for grievances, whether 
real or imaginary, but both equally inconsistent with the 
country's internal peace. 

If I were as unfortunate in the possession of power as is 
the French President, and in the love of it as he is reputed to 
be, I would on the appointed day and hour resign my com- 
mission according to my oath, and take a station, which no 
one could deny me, among the citizens of the Republic. 
Then, if those citizens saw fit to choose me by an important 
majority to be again their chief, I would accept office, consid- 
ering the Constitution, pro hue vice, as nullified, unless previ- 
ously revised, and respectfully await the action of the legisla- 



115 



tive body, knowing beforehand that, in dread of a Red Re- 
public, it would never venture to put a veto upon my second 
elevation to power. But were my majority inconsiderable, or 
were my name only one of several for which the greatest 
number of votes had been cast, in both events, regardless of 
every individual concern, I would retire with unsoiled dignity 
to private life, refusing to owe aught to a meagre plurality 
either in or out of the National Assembly, being but too sure 
that the time was not far distant when all, save the declared 
enemies of the public good, would clamor for the return of 
him whose mission in the cause of order had been as yet but 
half accomplished. 
Paris, June 3, 1851. 



LETTER XXX. 

When the late ex-King, Louis Philippe, came to the 
French throne he had an opportunity, such as rarely offers, to 
benefit not only his own country but the whole European 
Continent. In respect to foreign Powers, he had only to 
maintain a firm, independent and national bearing, and the 
popular force which carried him to his high place would have 
made Legitimist arrogance quail before, instead of affecting 
to despise, him ; and in the domestic relations of the State, 
had he gradually and discreetly extended the right of suffrage, 
had he set his face against Parliamentary bribery, had he ex- 
tended a parental regard to the amelioration of the condition 
of the laboring classes, and economically administered the 
finances of France and his own, he would have become the 
best beloved and most powerful Sovereign ever known to 
Frenchmen. But no, he would have none of these things. 



116 



The friendship of foreign potentates he preferred to the affec- 
tions of his own people, a working majority in the Chamber 
to a majority in the hearts of the governed, and a paltry alli- 
ance with a member of a reigning family in a second-rate 
kingdom to the good will of the only country on this side of 
the Atlantic which in the hour of trouble could and would 
faithfully have stood him in stead. And so he fell, and has 
parsed away, but the evil he did lives after him, and will not 
thus pass away, but is now preying upon the vitals of France. 

When President Bonaparte came to assume a power so 
idly lost, he too, like his predecessor, had a glorious part to 
enact in behalf of Frenchmen and the race of man. Two 
ways lay before him : one, harnessing himself to the old-fash- 
ioned ricketty machine here called government, to pull and 
haul it, like any other political hack, through the dirtiest 
official ruts, trimming his course to suit every party by turns 
except the right one, and satisfying none ; the other, to throw 
himself frankly, as with six millions of votes at his back he 
might have safely done, into the hands of those who lifted 
him from exile to a palace, loyally espousing, without regard 
to party, their common cause, whereby he would most have 
profited his own. And which has he preferred, light or dark- 
ness ? The example of a banished Sovereign — was it lost 
upon him or not? And the trust he reposed in irresponsible 
friends — has it proved more worthy than that unfailing 
source of all national strength — a people's love? 

Yet rauth may be said in extenuation of any errors he has 
committed. Many of the ablest men in Fiance, to their last- 
ing reproach, have held themselves aloof in the hour of need. 
The National Assembly, too, has set itself in array against 
him in season and out of season, and the sorriest feature in 
the history of the last few days is the scornful derision with 
which that body received the message of the Chief Magistrate 



117 

of the land. A wise man, however mighty and void of gen- 
erosity, never scoffs at a foe till he feels his neck beneath his 
heel ; but a foolish congregation, history teaches us, often 
humbles itself before a single inflexible will which once it re- 
viled. One would think, from their bearing on Tuesday last, 
that the majority of the Representatives hoped by their mock- 
ing laughter to drive the President to some act of folly, or at 
least to let him know that henceforth peace is at an end be- 
tween him and them. But let them look to it, for if I scan 
aright the shadows of events, the Presidential crisis will be 
decided without, and not within, the Assembly. Let them, as 
their political aspirations all reach beyond the present year — 
let them look well to the consequences of their untimely and 
contemptuous mirth, or the bitter sneer of to-day may breed 
the bloody deed of tomorrow. 

If baited beyond measure, the President may possibly turn 
to bay, and sin unpardonably against the State. But, barring 
such an act, which increase of years and experience renders 
highly improbable, I am convinced that no supposable folly on 
his part can effectually balk his hopes of a re-election at the 
expiration of his present term of office. I admit that wise 
and clever men — men, too, of no lowly condition in political 
life, differ from me widely, but then their opinions are not 
those of impartial spectators, and it seems to me that they do 
not properly appreciate the advantages which an inevitable 
change in the electoral law will bring to the President. Pre- 
viously to the prorogation of the Assembly a modification of 
that law, as touching municipal elections alone, but to be ex- 
tended hereafter to all other elections, was the subject of seri- 
ous discussion ; and the calculation is that its effect will be to 
restore the elective franchise to 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 of 
electors so improvidently excluded from the polls by the 
hasty and intemperate legislation of last year. Now, when- 



118 



ever a bill restoring to so many Frenchmen their rights shall 
have received the sanction of the people's Representatives, 
three-fourths of the votes thus recovered will be cast for him 
in whose name order has hitherto been preserved, and to him 
will blindly be attributed all the honor, however small may 
be his due. They will be cast for him, because they will 
come from men whose vocations require tranquillity. Re- 
spectable journeymen, honest peasant laborers, and farmers 
of small patches, whose way of life renders a fixed residence 
of three y :ars and the proof of it equally impossible, will 
naturally cling to one under whom tliey have enjoyed a res- 
pite from trouble, rather than take to another whom they 
know nothing about. 

Then, in considering the chances of M. Bonaparte, Avho is 
there to oppose him on the Presidential field ? Two candi- 
dates alone can be put forward without risking a ridiculous 
failure. One of these must be the representative of Mon- 
archists, and of united Monarchies — of Legitimists, Orlean- 
ists, and Fusionists ; the other of Socialists, or, under what- 
ever name they may go, of all enemies to the present estab- 
lishments of society. The former of the supposed candidates, 
according to present appearances, will be General Changar- 
nier, a man artificially reserved but naturally talkative and 
boastful. Under ordinary circumstances self-possessed and 
taciturn by calculation, it is feared by his best friends that, 
when standing face to face with bright hopes and a brilliant 
future, habit will break down before nature and that the tones 
of the barrack room will pervade the hall of debate. Hence 
it is that, no perfect confidence being placed in his wisdom, no 
enthusiasm can be felt or communicated by those who regard 
him as a convenient instrument for unseating the President. 
And hence it is, too, that, for fear of his using himself up, his 
name will be kept back till the latest possible moment. The 



119 



other candidate — a Red man, either M. Rollin or M. Carnot, 
but probably the former, the latter not being sufficiently no- 
torious — will, if heartily supported by his party, prove a 
perfect godsend to M. Bonaparte ; for then, rather than risk 
an evil that may crush them, or trust their last venture to an 
African general whose character is an enigma, all other par- 
ties will eagerly fall back on the man they now denounce. 

Say what they may, the partisans of the obnoxious law of 
May 31st know, for its authors and advocates bare repeatedly 
declared as much, that it was a political blow at the Moun- 
tain, to show not only what could be, but what should be 
dune. They know, too, that those who made it were not 
less astonished than other men, to find about 3,000,000 excluded 
from the privilege of voting, instead of COO/ 00 or 800,000, 
the sum total of the floating population on which they had 
counted ; and they ought to know that the continuance of 
this law in its pristine absurdity, will be a weapon in the 
hands of their enemies which time cannot wear out nor force 
destroy. "Whatever may have been the President's motives 
for attempting in such a sweeping manner what the Assembly 
had already begun, the measure wears every appearance of 
having been dictated by an unworthy desire to supplant that 
body in the affections of the common people. Let that, 
however, be as it may, if his object, a re-election, be in any 
way advanced by the untoward step he has taken, his will be 
the regret at having employed such questionable means, while 
the country will be the gainer by it. At least, I think so. 
For who so well as he can occupy the Presidential chair while 
Monarchy in France continues impossible and Republicanism 
impracticable? Who so well as he can fulfil the requisi- 
tions of the present times ? He is a prince, and a prince his 
countrymen will have to rule over them. He is not a soldier, 
and of military dominion they had enough in his uncle's 



120 



time. He is by necessity the antipodes of legitimacy, which 
has left hardly a fibre in the soil, and of Orleanism, which 
never took root in it. He will not east in his lot with the 
Reds, for he knows this country cannot be governed by its 
queue. In a word, if he would serve himself, he must faith- 
fully serve, till its mission be accomplished, the nondescript 
Government here, which any other President would be 
likely to displace for something infinitely worse. 

That he will remain, as he now is, ineligible, is pronounced 
to be a certainty ; but as opposed to three or four millions of 
votes, and universal apprehension, which will prevail some 
months hence, of what use will be a written Constitution, 
except in the hands of some miscreants who would light a 
civil war with it ? The rest is a matter between him and his 
own conscience, of which I am not a little distrustful ; for a 
man who, after the shining example given by him at Bou- 
logne to persons of Lopez's stamp, could have the temerity, 
at the hazard of offending the people of a friendly "sister 
Republic," to mix himself up with anything pertaining to the 
Cuban invasion, cannot be over-burdened with scrupulous- 
ness. If it be true that Lord Palmerston is in league with 
him, and that French and English ships of war are to haunt 
the Gulf of Mexico, visiting and searching American vessels, 
his Lordship may be indulging nothing more than his cus- 
tomary passion for intermeddling, and the President a sudden 
weakness for his "friendly relations with Spain." But should 
anything serious come of it, I can tell these two gentlemen 
that the "energetic Yankees," as you love to call us, the 
English cotton spinners and the French silk weavers, will 
give them both a lesson for meditation in retirement which 
will last them to the end of their lives. 

Everybody in America, of common understanding and 
honest principles, condemned the expedition to Cuba from 



121 



first to last. Even the invaders themselves now are loudest 
in the execration of it. The wisdom, therefore, of non- 
interference in any way whatever on the part of England or 
France, is " as plain as way to parish church." 

Paris, November 9, 1851. 



LETTER XXXI. 

Man, as you know, is a credulous being, and one race of 
men is said to be pre-eminently gullible. 

A few months since the cry of a French invasion startled 
nine-tenths of the inhabitants of the British Isles from their 
propriety, and made the halls of council ring with a diversity 
of opinions, some of which were far more amusing than in- 
structive. A crafty and well-feigned indifference, however, 
on one side of the Channel, and a Militia Bill on the other, 
restored confidence where it had been shaken, and tranquillity 
where it had been disturbed. So that now to whisper a 
doubt of Gallic faith, or Bonapartean honor, would be ac- 
counted by more than one of your contemporaries a crime 
against the peace of Europe. Yet, truth to tell, causes re- 
main unchanged, motives unaltered, ideas fixed ; and it is 
only the means of working mischief, more dynastic than 
French, that do not rest the same, but, on the contrary, go 
on day by day increasing in compactness, vigor and vir- 
ulence. 

That the Prince President of France is unscrupulously 
ambitious is evident from his uniform disregard of every 
ordinance which has ever stood in the way of his bound- 
less desires. Neither the life, nor the liberty, nor the 
property of his fellow man has he " set at a pin's fee," when - 



122 



ever an object, right in his eyes, was to be accomplished. 
And yet this man the Trench accept as their master — nay ! 
the ministers of religion profanely hail him as the " Saviour 
of France ! " 

I have been told by one who was the friend of Louis Na- 
poleon's youth, that the Prince's heart was ever set, with a 
sort of superstitious faith, upon the untenable eminence he 
now occupies. To a man who has thus succeeded in the face 
of every probability nothing must appear impossible — not 
even the achievement of what is called greatness, in the 
world's loose talk. — But, till now, he has done nothing 
and gained nothing which could satisfy an ambition even 
less craving than his. The ascent from the condition of 
a penniless wanderer to an estate that, for present power, 
Louis XIV- himself might almost have envied, has been so 
easy, when once begun, that it has served to whet, not glut, 
the passion which aspires to yet a loftier height. To mount, 
however, an imperial throne, making his stepping-stones 
a crew of abject senators, with mendacious petitions in their 
servile hands, is not the exaltation, I fancy, which causes him 
a moment's uneasy calculation. This he might have done 
yesterday amid a deafening chorus of hallelujahs. He may 
do it tomorrow, and all France — all living France, at least, 
will shout, "Amen ! " No, it is something less patent and 
palpable to the common eye which stirs his soul, and fires 
him with a determination to out-Napoleon Napoleon himself, 
by some astounding act beyond the borders of his own coun- 
try, that shall make the sacrifice of her liberties pale before it. 

The Emperor, great, perhaps, as mere mortal, lacking 
virtue, can ever hope to be, with continental Europe at his 
feet, would have been universally triumphant, had not Eng- 
land, Proteus-like, met him at every turn. But England's 
soil he was allowed neither to touch nor to tread. He saw 
i t, and perished. 



123 



Now, even if the Prince President, by force of a military 
genius hitherto unsuspected but by himself, could, as did his 
uncle before him, push emperors from their stools, and crowd 
his antechambers with uncrowned kings, he would accomplish 
nothing more than had already proved of no avail to secure a 
permanence of fortune. But if, in addition to all this, he 
could put a bit in the mouth of the Island Queen, and make 
her merchant princes, were it but for a season, tributary to 
his wants, — if he could illuminate his conquest, however 
transiently, by the light of her capital in flames, and his tri- 
umphant progress, hurried though it might be, from port to 
port by bonfires of her floating bulwarks, — then, indeed, 
would he have outstripped his prototype, and then would he, 
as he thinks, have fulfilled his mission by wiping out the 
stain upon his country's honor, inflicted by that great and just 
man who never, except in death, caused an English tear to 
fall. 

That such a vision is no stranger to his waking dreams 
there are reasons for believing, as was shown some months 
ago both in and out of Parliament. Since then, in one of 
the few unguarded moments ever known to him, he was heard 
to exclaim, " The catastrophe of Waterloo shall be avenged ! " 
For this my authority is good, — so good, in fact, that, were 
the reporter of his master's word to be publicly announced 
as such, better had it been for that man if a millstone about 
his neck had kept him forever in the distant province where 
he was born to nobler work than that in which he is now 
engaged. I do not deny that an attempt at such ven- 
geance may seem improbable to your readers, — as improba- 
ble even as the attacks on Strasburg and Boulogne, had they 
been foretold, — almost as improbable, it may be, as a few 
years since would have been the prediction of a vault from a 
hired lodging to an imperial palace. But none of them will 



124 



deem it impossible, if they have a correct notion of the na- 
tional temper in France to back a daring deed, and of the 
equilibrium necessary here to be preserved between the de- 
mand and supply of glory, or if they have ever witnessed the 
ill-concealed writhings of a Frenchman whenever the name 
of Waterloo is pronounced. 

Though the time for making the experiment will be adroitly 
chosen, I have no fear for the ultimate results. Nevertheless, 
it behoves all men to be upon their guard as to the possible 
future ; and no Administration should be permitted an hour's 
relaxation while a Bonaparte possesses a tittle of power in 
France. 

You need not be told how easy it is to make occasions 
when a course is once decided on. But my present object 
is to direct your attention especially to a particular means, 
conducting inevitably to war, which is available at all 
times to France, which may be employed when England 
is in trouble, and will certainly be seized upon when she 
is least prepared. Between the French possessions in Africa 
and the Empire of Morocco lies a strip of territory some 
thirty leagues in breadth, that in several respects bears a 
strong resemblance to the undefined borderland connecting 
England and Scotland iu the good old times of rugging and 
riving. Upon this ground of a disputed ownership the French 
can, whenever it suits them, find cause of quarrel for the pur- 
pose of over-turning a semi-barbarous throne, which they 
have long coveted and are resolved to have. But England 
could not and would not remain an indifferent spectator of 
such proceedings. She will not suffer her important commerce 
with Morocco to be sacrificed with impunity. » 

War, therefore, projected and provided for by France, but 
unforeseen by England, would surely follow. Is it not, then, 
worth your while, as far as in you lies, to prevent the country 



125 

from being lulled into a false security by the fallacious cry of 
" Peace, peace," when there is no peace, but only, in fact, a 
hollow truce ? 

Paris, Sept. 27, 1852. 



LETTER XXXII. 

The Island of Cuba will sooner or later become a compo- 
nent part of the United States of America ; when and how, 
no one can now tell, though the moment and manner of the 
transformation are of serious import to all parties concerned. 
It will be changed from what it is to what it ought to be — 
from comparative weakness to positive strength — from par- 
tial cultivation to complete productiveness, and, in a word 
from Creole existence to American life. "Whenever this 
change shall arrive, it will not be in obedience to mere acci- 
dents of war or diplomacy, though these may, indeed, hasten 
or retard it, but to an invariable law that reigned paramount 
long before the boasted name of Anglo-Saxon was invented, 
and has ever since been the moving cause in subjugating the 
hosts of India, in annihilating the tribes of North America, 
and will continue to be, as it is now, the rule of action, in root- 
ing out the remnants of a degenerate race from the southern 
portion of that hemisphere. This law, embodied in the " Par- 
able of the Talents," and as true in our day as it was eighteen 
centuries ago, teaches, by examples without number, that a 
rich but neglected soil, like other treasures intrusted to un- 
profitable servants, shall be taken away and be given to others 
less faithless than themselves. Cuba might be made to bring 
forth a hundredfold, and it does not produce sixty ; and even 
of this sixtyfold no inconsiderable part is wasted, in contra- 



126 



vention of another divine precept, that " the workman is wor- 
thy of his hire," and ought not to be even partially defrauded 
of the fruits of his toil. The Treasury of Spain opens and 
shuts periodically, as the " Queen of the Antilles" pours into 
it a tribute which is wholly unrequited. For what requi- 
tal is it in return for enormous annual shipments of specie, 
or its equivalent, to have a foreign garrison to pay, feed, and 
clothe, a foreign fleet to support, and a foreign governor, who 
left his home with scarcely a coin in his pocket, to pamper on 
island produce till he has amassed a fortune worthy of a roy- 
al prince ? Cuba, therefore, must fall, but only to rise again, 
regenerated by the ordeal through which she has to pass, and 
prepared, by the agency of new hands, to repay the fullest 
usury for gifts of nature which nowhere are surpassed. 

It is a singular fact, the truth of which can be established 
by papers in the French State offices, and by authentic copies 
of the same in Downing-street, that shortly after the revolu- 
tion of July there was a proposition made by the Spanish 
Government to transfer Cuba to France for a term of years, 
at a fixed rent ; but that the English Foreign Secretary, 
having been apprised of the matter, put an end to the nego- 
tiation before it had reached maturity. Now, if Spain would 
have recourse to a similar expedient with regard to America, 
or, still better, if she could be induced to sell her property in 
that island outright, she would thereby be saved from adding 
another total loss to the heavy miscarriages already sustained 
by her in that quarter of the world. Interest, backed by the 
good sense of to-day, cries loudly to her on one side ; but 
false pride, nursed by the bad temper of the past, cries more 
loudly on the other, and the wrong course she will inevitably 
follow ; for experience is as often lost upon nations as upon 
individuals, and, till now, no Administration in Spain has ex- 
hibited a striking exception to this general rule. 



127 



But I do not esteem as a whit more wise those persons 
whose object is, per fas et nefas, a sudden and violent revo- 
lution in the relations of Cuba. They forget that when fruit 
is ripe it will fall of itself, and that while it is green none but 
blockheads or schoolboys will shake the tree, for fear of hav- 
ing their own crowns broken. Many of those who, in antici- 
pation of the work of time, invaded that forbidden isle, ex- 
piated, as is well known, their folly and crime beneath the 
arm of the executioner. Admitting the strict justice of the 
sentence passed upon them, no one possessed of common feel- 
ing could refrain from yielding unstinted pity for their un- 
happy fate. But if, with that fate, and the Christian clem- 
ency of Spanish Royalty that followed it, yet fresh in the 
memory of all men, others more wicked, because better in- 
formed, than they, will seek to imitate their example in life, 
I, for one, care not if in death too they furnish a faithful par- 
allel ; and you may be sure that 999 of every 1,000 persons 
in the United States are of my way of thinking, because not 
a thousandth portion of the American community, it may be 
safely asserted, are so idle and unprincipled — nay, so stupid, 
as wantonly to turn their hands to robbery and murder, at the 
risk of involving their country in war, and of encircling their 
own necks with a halter. 

The transition, come when it may, from a subject to an in- 
dependent condition, from subordination to a distant Power 
to confederation with one adjacent, will doubtless occasion 
some temporary inconvenience to the inhabitants of Cuba ; 
but to the whole commercial world it will, when completed, 
be of immediate service, by the development of new powers 
of production and of increased capacities of consumption in 
that island. 

So little, however, are my sympathies enlisted on the side 
of marauders on a friendly soil, so persuaded am I that Amer- 



128 



ica lias already more territory than is of use to her, except 
for the exclusion of strangers, so loathsome in my eyes is he 
who would set man at odds with his neighbor, and arm nation 
against nation, and, at the same time, so apprehensive am I 
of right and might being confounded in a contest between 
youth on the increase and age on the wane, that if the tempt- 
ing " bit of ground" could be peacefully floated off some dark 
night beyond the reach of Yankee cupidity, I, for my part, 
would cheerfully bid it God speed, as, loosening its deep-sea 
moorings, it slipped noiselessly from its rocky bed. 

If I were an absolute Abolitionist, with the ease of con- 
science peculiar to wronghead-ed-ness, I would do my utmost 
to wrench the " Queen of the Antilles" from the Queen of 
Spain, on the score of the frequent importation of slaves from 
Africa, which is countenanced, if not encouraged, by officers 
of the highest rank upon that island, in the service of the 
Crown. Nothing of the sort, it is needless to say, could hap- 
pen there after the United States' laws had begun to operate, 
although, as on the Continent, the property of the white man 
in his slave, would, of course, be protected, and faithfully pro- 
tected too, I should hope, if for no other reason, for the sake 
of the poor negro himself, notwithstanding " Uncle Tom," 
his " cabin," and the good dame Stowe to boot. I should 
hope so, because many years must elapse before our sombre- 
shaded brethren, do what we may, can be fitted for a better 
state than that they now occupy, and many more, I fear, must 
be added to these, if writers like the unfair author of the 
Cabin will persist, in spite of sense and honesty, in besmirch- 
ing the character of the master, in order to contrast its simu- 
lated inky hue with the fantastic colors attributed by them to 
the slave ; for, widening by such means the distance between 
the two, they weaken the arm of the only agent, the owner, 
through whom emancipation, if ever it is to be, can be ac- 



129 

complisked, and thus run counter to their own professed 
schemes of benevolence. 

Slave proprietors in America are, in my opinion, a sadly 
wronged set of people, and, above all, whenever an English 
pen or tongue is directed against them. It cannot be too 
often repeated that their fathers, notwithstanding prayers and 
remonstrances still on record, had sour grapes in the shape of 
countless cargoes of black flesh forced upon them by your fa- 
thers, and now, that their teeth are set on edge, they are coolly 
told to go to the Abolitionist practitioner for relief. 

Though offences are easily forgiven and forgotten by the 
backslider himself, and still more easily by the heir to profits 
of successful crime, it ought ever to be remembered, while a 
single slave-stain soils the western shores of the Atlantic, that 
the harbors of Great Britain for a long time swarmed with 
shipping, owned and employed by Englishmen, for the trans- 
portation of human merchandise from the African coast to 
the markets of America. 

If I were a slave owner, making the present French ruler 
my exemplar, I would no more think of giving emancipation 
to negroes than he does of conferring freedom on Frenchmen ; 
and, indeed, judging from present appearances, I sometimes 
begin to doubt whether the latter are more worthy of the re- 
alities of liberty than the former. Like him, in all temporal 
concerns at least, I would make my subjects see with my eyes 
and hear with my ears ; for neither pen, ink, nor paper, plain 
or printed, any more than plague, pestilence, and famine, if I 
could exclude thmn, should enter my domains while Aboli- 
tionists and their pernicious doctrines were abroad. On 
" Uncle Tom's" godmother, then, and her allies, who do evil 
on the mad chance of extracting a fanciful good from it, 
would rest the responsibility of leaving the negro in his bliss 
of ignorance, since to inflict wisdom upon him prematurely, 
6 



130 



as they are trying to do, must involve him and his master in 
one common ruin. 

Paris, Nov. 10th, 1852. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

The leading article in your number of December 1st, on 
negro slavery in the United States, merits the thanks of 
every American who has feeling enough to appreciate the 
delicacy of treatment which the subject demanded, and suffi- 
cient sense to comprehend the consummate skill and admira- 
ble instinct with which it was handled. It ought to be studied 
by all abolitionist intermeddlers, for it teaches how close akin 
to evil is zeal without knowledge and "enthusiasm without dis- 
cretion. In a most limited space you have said so much so 
well, that nothing remains to be added but a few remarks 
which were suggested to me by the perusal of two extraor- 
dinary documents that have lately laid claim to public atten- 
tion. 

In one of these — the " address " prepared by the Eail of 
Shaftesbury for the " women of England, " to be presented 
by them to their Trans-atlantic " sisters " — its author une- 
quivocally assumes for his own countrymen a share in the 
pretended guilt of the American slave-owner, on the ground 
of their forefathers' agency in a traffic which, be it always 
remembered, the United States' Government was the first 
to denounce and punish as a crime against the law of nations. 
The unwelcome burden so manfully, though painfully, placed 
upon English shoulders by the noble earl, Lord Carlisle, in 
the other document alluded to, reluctantly fastens there, with, 
however, the somewhat undignified reservation, "that the 



131 



onward course of the present century, which has witnessed 
in England the successive abolitions of the slave trade and 
of slavery, and in the United States the enactment of the 
Fugitive Slave Law, is daily tending to diminish the appo- 
siteness of this plea of complicity." These words, together 
with the acknowledgment of the said complicity, are to be 
found in an essay prefixed to the London edition of Mrs. 
Stowe's exaggerated, and therefore mischievous, portraiture 
of life in the Southern States. This prefatory piece of 
supererogation, allow it to be said in passing, strikes me as 
being equally feeble and illogical, and so thoroughly revolu- 
tionary in character as to be wholly unworthy of tbe wisdom 
supposed to be innate, in certain cases, by right of birth. It 
is feeble, because its tenor throughout is "letting I dare not 
wait upon I would." It is illogical, because, while with his 
pen its author goads the anti-slavery party in America to 
open defiance of laws, he naively prescribes, " Let the only 
weapon of warfare in this high quarrel, be the concurring 
conscience of mankind." And it is revolutionary, because 
its tendency is to subvert all rule, by the encouragement it 
gives to rebellion against constituted authority, and by the 
commendation it bestows upon " those who, let the law of the 
land be for the moment what it may, make it the business of 
their lives to harbor the fugitive slave;" that is, to set at 
nought the commands of the very men whom they them- 
selves have chosen to be their governors and guides. Once 
allow this product of inherited wisdom to be orthodox, and 
might will become right. The Anti-renter in New York, 
the Nullifier in South Carolina, the smuggler everywhere, 
and all bad men, taking Lord Carlisle's preface as their 
text-book, will scoff at the sword of justice, which now 
protects her tribunals, high and low, from the inroads of indi- 
vidual judgment and the onslaughts of fanaticism. 



132 



But such testimony as is borne by the two noble volun- 
teers to acts committed by Englishmen so long ago, with its 
accompanying admission of a responsibility which survives 
the lapse of time, is of a certain value, not only for its fresh- 
ness, but on account of the exalted character and station 
enjoyed by those gentlemen ; yet, if it were wanting, the 
facts of the case are of easy proof, and to the moral sense of 
every man the heirship to the odious accountability must be 
as clear as, in the nature of things, it will remain unchangea- 
ble. The confession, however, coming from a source so 
elevated and irreproachable in most respects, answers the 
excellent purpose of enabling Americans, without any com- 
promise of dignity, to enter court, not as defendants by 
themselves, but as co-penitents in an action whose commence- 
ment was a crime, whose continuance is a plague, and whose 
end, if precipitated, may be desolation to the master, and 
must be destruction to the slave. For it would be less cruel 
to turn your stall-fed beast out to graze upon a macadamised 
high-road, than to force his liberty upon the untutored 
negro ; and as to instructing him beyond what is necessary 
to his well-being hereafter, it would be the height of folly 
to attempt such a thing, so long as half-crazed or reckless 
adventurers, in a cause which they cannot or will not under- 
stand, are ever ready to ply him with publications that are 
calculated to set in motion the worst passions of a sadly 
neglected race. Within an hour I have heard a Southern 
planter, of no ordinary rank in America, and of still higher 
in Europe, exclaim, " Gladly would I surrender all my slaves 
without a penny in exchange for them (and hundreds of 
proprietors are anxious to do the same) to any one who is 
able and willing to give a sufficient guarantee that, with 
their newly acquired freedom, they shall have the means of 
a comfortable existence." Why, a freed negro, wanting such 



133 



means for immediate use, is but a slave without a master — 
the most pitiable of mortals — as was proved in your own 
colonies, where the black man, on the day of his liberation, 
gained little else than the privilege of supporting his aged 
parents and helpless children, when he himself had hardly 
the energy and capacity to provide his own daily sustenance. 

Some few of your readers may, perhaps, not be aware of 
the fact that the General Government at Washington has 
no more control over State slavery than any man living has 
over the new French Emperor. The Governments, conse- 
quently, of those States wherein slavery exists are the chief 
mediums through which is to be effected, if the thing be 
practicable, any fundamental change or partial modification 
in their domestic concerns. But, besides men in office, who 
are the first to be consulted, there are, of course, many others 
high in authority for their personal worth, all of whom ought 
to be directly addressed by volunteer reformers, if, indeed, 
notoriety be not the sole object of these persons, and if, in 
their Christian esteem, "the subject of slavery constitutes," 
as Lord Carlisle opines, " the most difficult and solemn prob- 
lem that now engages the attention of mankind." 

And this brings me to the point which I had in view when 
commencing this letter. The two noblemen to whose pro- 
ductions I have referred, with their coadjutors, male and 
female, do not, in my opinion, go to work the right way to 
insure success. They should take the bull by the horns if 
they would avoid being tossed. Instead of sitting quietly 
at home in their easy chairs, inditing prefaces and addresses, 
and publishing them by the press or word of mouth, they 
should gird up their loins, like the Apostles, who toiled while 
they preached, or like the Crusaders, who fought while they 
exhorted, and with their own hands should they set about 
the reformation which they appear to have so much at heart, 



134 



remembering that words no less than faith, without works, are 
dead. What I say is intended in all seriousness, not for 
Lord Carlisle's "concurring conscience of mankind" — a 
sounding nonentity, but for his own individual conscience, 
and for the conscience of every one who shapes his course 
as it is pricked out for him by that abolitionist pioneer on 
the chart of imaginary duty. I wish to see those who pro- 
fess to believe that the slave-owner can be converted and 
that slavery can be ameliorated, put their arguments to the 
test of actual experiment. Their literary progenies, brought 
forth at a distance of 3,000 or 4,000 miles, cost them noth- 
ing but pen, ink and paper, with now and then a little 
" windy suspiration of forced breath ; " they avail nothing 
but to provoke, and they prove nothing but an excess of 
ill-employed time. They may come from the heart, but no 
one will care whether they do or not, unless some personal 
sacrifice be at the back of them ; and poor is the chance of 
their reaching the heart through the cold channel of a public 
meeting, where each individual on his or her person bears a 
cotton tribute to slave labor, or through the passionless 
column of a newspaper, most of whose component parts have 
been moistened with the sweat of a " human chattel." 

What I want these gentlemen to do, with or without their 
fair accomplices, is, straightway, even now in mid-winter, 
to take the first steamer for America, to go in companies of 
twenties, sixties and hundreds, to the scenes of their lucu- 
brations, and there to examine for themselves and counsel 
what are the best measures to be adopted. The Southern 
planter, I can assure you from my own experience, is remark- 
able for his hospitality ; and the English gentlemen, to say 
nothing of English ladies, with their purposes honestly set 
forth, as they necessarily would be, could not fail to meet 
with a most honorable reception under his roof. Then they 



135 



would see with their own eyes, and not with the eyes of a 
romancer, what things are true and what are false, and then, 
too, by propounding, face to face, such arguments as seemed 
good to them at a distance, they might, perchance, bring 
about, at least, a partial purgation of the Anglo-American 
plague-spot, which now so sorely afflicts them. 

To cpiit a comfortable fireside on an errand of this sort, I 
admit, would not be the most agreeable undertaking in the 
month of December ; but when the disciple to do the work 
of his Lord, threw down his net, his only means of liveli- 
hood, did he consult his personal comfort ? Or, when the 
anointed king forsook crown and country, wife and children, 
to redeem the sepulchre of that same Lord, did he expect to 
find a bed of roses in the East ? 

Some, if not all, of these sentimental champions of their 
dark-colored brethren will, I fear, suddenly discover that 
they have " married a wife " or a husband, as the case may 
be, or " bought a piece of land, or a yoke of oxen," and will, 
therefore, " pray to be excused " from doing what has been 
proposed by me in no spirit of levity. But if so, and if 
they refuse to do their great Master's business, such as they 
deem it to be, except by " mint of phrases and sweet words," 
then I too will crave for indulgence when I recommend to 
them a becoming silence for the future, as the surest means 
of preventing the aggravation of an evil, which the best 
friend and most powerful advocate of the negro ever known 
in America * was forced to acknowledge had been greatly 
increased by rash and ignorant interference. 

Paris, December 23, 1853. 

*Dr. Channing on "Slavery in tho United States." 



136 



LETTER XXXIY. 

Newspapers being intended for public instruction, and not 
for private uses, I desire to obtrude nothing of a personal na- 
ture upon you, except, should your indulgence allow me, to 
declare that I am not an " infidel," as your correspondent, 
"An American," very facetiously affects to believe, but, on the 
contrary, that I am ready, whenever a man can be found who 
thinks more highly of the Christian religion than I do myself, 
straightway to forego my own opinions and take his. This I 
say, not for the satisfaction or edification of my fellow-country- 
man, to whom I owe scant courtesy, but in order that these 
few words, if through your kindness they ever see the light, 
may not be deprived by undeserved aspersion of the little 
weight which possibly pertains to them of i*ight. 

Even if it be true, as your correspondent avers, while I un- 
equivocally deny, that "the laws of every slave State in 
America forbids you, under pains and penalties, to teach a 
slave to read," there is, so far as they concern volunteer foreign 
instruction, no lack of wisdom or justice in such laws. The 
masters are themselves Christians, and, self-preservation being 
dictated both by divine and human authority, they are proba- 
bly the best judges of the degree of knowledge that can be 
bestowed upon the slave, consistently with the welfare of the 
whole community. I speak from good information when I 
affirm that instruction, and religious instruction, too is not 
withheld from the blacks, and that if the doors were once in- 
discriminately opened to teachers of all sorts, there would 
not be a white man in the Southern States who could sleep in 
safety without a "revolver" within his reach. 

"An American" next runs amuck at slavery itself, as 
though that institution, as he calls it, were esteemed a greater 
evil by him than by you or me. But even he. in all his self- 



137 

plenitude, prudently ~shi*inks from indicating " what means 
should be employed to do away with the difficulty," instead of 
boldly proclaiming, with Friend Sturge and his three good 
men and true, that " Now's the day, and now's the hour," or 
like Lord Shaftesbury, who, having nothing at risk, graciously 
grants a six-and-thirty months' grace for the complete eman- 
cipation of negroes by the million ! The noble Earl might, 
in his mercy to master as well as to slave, have conceded a 
margin somewhat broader, I think, without damage to charac- 
ter on either side. 

I am not a preacher of the "Word, as "An American " seems 
to be, but I am sufficiently versed in the Scriptures to tell 
him, when he audaciously puts slave-holding and stealing in 
the same category, that while there is no stronger reference 
in the Bible to the former act, or habit, than " Slaves, obey 
in all things your masters," which lends at least a negative 
countenance to the " institution," there is a very distinct in- 
junction against the latter, with which we are all tolerably fa- 
miliar from our infancy. I can easily conceive of a child's 
being justified in disobedience to a father who orders him to 
violate a written commandment of God, but it surpasses my 
intelligence to trace any similitude between such disobedience 
and the insolent defiance of a law, which, after long and 
anxious deliberation, was framed by the wisest and best men 
in America, acting under the responsibility of an oath that re- 
quired them to consult the general good. 

It should be remembered by your one-idea-ed correspond- 
ent that there are other " neighbors " in the world to be " loved 
as ourselves" besides the fugitive slave, that there are other 
interests to be respected which are not less valuable than his, 
and that, if we " do unto others as we would have them do 
unto uj;," the white owner ought to be admitted to some small 
participation in our universal benevolence. 
6* 



138 



"An American" would have done much better had he left 
alone " the men of New England and of New England de- 
scent, who cannot obey the Fugitive Law," because they not 
only do obey it, but will be compelled to obey it. I happen 
to know that part of the country as well as, I suspect, if not 
better than, he, for I am no more a Southerner than I am " an 
infidel," and, though my affections and prejudices are naturally 
with those of my more immediate kin, truth constrains me to 
dissent from the immodest assertion that the people of New 
England " have ever been, and are now, the most conscien- 
tious men on that (the American) continent." The port of 
Boston swarmed with slave-ships, — so much for the " have 

ever been ; " and, as for the " are now " but the Great 

Napoleon's maxim about the domestic ablution of articles in a 
certain condition I am not disposed to neglect. Verbum sat 
sapienti, but " the way of a fool is right in his own eyes," 
even if a rod be upheld before him. 

Paris, Dec, 27, 1853. 



LETTER XXXV. 

Russia, by might or assumed right, has for some time exer- 
cised a protectorate over a portion of the Sultan's subjects ; 
and, as a guarantee of the continuance of this pretended right, 
she has seized upon certain countries which do not belong to 
her. Whether iniquity or impudence more abounds in this 
transaction it is hard to say, but is it any worse than what 
England (by your own accounts) has been guilty of in India, 
France in Algeria, Austria and Prussia in Poland, or the 
United States in the territory of the aborigines of America ? 
Not a whit. Whence comes, then, the clamor against the 
Czar which is continually dinned in our ears? "A love of 



139 

fair play" is answered on one side, and " hatred of oppress- 
ion" on the other. Now, this is sheer nonsense, not to add 
hypocrisy. It comes from fear — rank, though not unreason- 
able, fear — of the great Northern Power which threatens to 
deluge all Europe. More evil arises from self-deception than 
from any lie that can be palmed upon us by ethers, and con- 
cealment of the truth often leads to more error than positive 
falsehood. From active fraud in others we are able to de- 
fend ourselves, but from lurking mischief in our own bosoms 
there is no protection. Europe has eyes, but she sees not ; 
she has ears, but she will not hear. The first Emperor Na- 
poleon declared that in fifty years she would become either 
republican or Cossack. Republicanism has been tried, and 
has failed, and now the other alternative " looms in the dis- 
tance." All turns upon the present, and upon what the pres- 
ent shall bring forth. If the Emperor of Russia be not beaten 
out of the position he occupies, if he retain but a single out- 
post, he will in the long run rest master of the field. His 
policy is not of to-day nor of yesterday, nor is it his alone or 
his brother's before him, but it is emphatically Russian, and 
Russian it will be, till the words of Napoleon be fulfilled, un- 
less united Europe take the bull by the horns, and, instead of 
being tossed, toss him. If Turkey were alone concerned, if 
she alone were materially interested in her manly resistance, 
not an arm would be lifted in her behalf, not a word would be 
said about " fair play" or of " oppression," for not a single 
Power could come into court with clean hands. But common 
danger breeds common feeling, and Heaven grant that its pro- 
duct may be also common sense ; for, if common action in 
the right direction do not follow, woe be to Europe ! 

So well as I can comprehend the heterogeneous massof 
facts and fictions, assertions and contradictions, which add 
weight without strength to most of the journals of Europe, it 



140 



seems to me that the main, if not only hope of preserving the 
general peace rests on the chance of coaxing the Czar to be- 
come a party to a joint protectorate, to be extended over all 
the Christian subjects of the Sultan, in place of that single- 
handed one which he has heretofore exercised in his own sol- 
itary self-sufficiency. Now, this protectorate, which implies 
either weakness Oi wickedness in the sovereign against whom 
it may at will be employed, and which therefore cannot be of 
his own seeking, is consistent or inconsistent with the law of na- 
tions ; it is right, or it is wrong. If right, why have other Pow- 
ers meddled with it, and with its legitimate consequences, the 
occupation of the Principalities, the slaughter of thousands 
and the expenditure of millions ? But, if wrong, under what 
pretext do these said Powers wish to share it ? The answer 
is plain. They dare not, and this is the only reason under 
the sun why they cannot, strip Russia of it, and they slyly 
hope to weaken its effects by becoming participators in the 
disreputable and cunningly devised scheme. I doubt their 
success. Truth and plain dealing, in the pursuit of an hon- 
orable object, will carry a man or a nation through a world 
of trouble, but no sort of dealing will sanctify the subversion, 
by division, of the Sultan's authority. Neither Russia, nor 
England, nor France have any more right to interfere with 
the Christian population of Turkey, than the United States 
have to come between the Crown of Spain and a host of 
Yankee Cuban proprietors who are clamorous for protection, 
or rather for annexation, in which protection is always sure 
to end. Is not the Sultan as independent a sovereign as 
Queen Victoria or the Emperor Napoleon? and is he not as free 
to defy foreign interference as President Pierce ? And what 
would the Queen of England, or the Emperor of France, or 
the President of the United States say to any earthly potentate 
who dared to put himself between the ruler and the ruled ? 



141 



Their answers, if any were vouchsafed, would be, I guess, 
not sweet, but short. Believe me, Turkey is not yet weak 
enough to be put into leading-strings. 

If that portion of her population which is not infidel be 
oppressed, of which there has lately been no proof, let it con- 
tinue to suffer till suffering bring forth strength, rather than 
call in third parties, who will infallibly finish matters by find- 
ing sovereign and subject both in the wrong. It will cost 
the " Four Powers " or the " Two Powers," who are the 
only working parties, — for Austria and Prussia feel that in 
case of a European war they would be between the Devil 
and the Deep Sea, and therefore will have none of it, — it 
will cost England and France much less to banish all foreign 
machinations from Turkish territory at once, and to push 
back the Czar into his proper place, than it will to con- 
struct, and year after year maintain, the many-headed pro- 
tectorate on which some men's dreams are running. Such 
a protectorate would be worthless without a continuous una- 
nimity among the protectors, on which no one could count, 
and an ever-ready instrument of mischief to a mischievous 
majority with a wily Russian at its head, who would extract 
from numbers a moral force which, unsupported, he could 
never look to have. 

War is the concentration of every crime, and they are 
worthy of all praise who, regardless of babbling fools, labor 
in the interests of peace. But, much as I fear the one and 
love the other, were I so unfortunate as to occupy Lord 
Aberdeen's place, rather than share in any unrighteous pro- 
tectorate over Turkish subjects, or allow Russia to be their 
sole protector, I would let loose every dog of war that could 
be unmuzzled. To do this, if the Czar will have his own 
way, and to rectify the "balance of power," if, indeed, that 
famous piece of mechanism have other than an ideal exis- 



142 



tence, such an opportunity as the present may not o:cur 
again for many a day. The universal cry which I have 
within a few weeks heard resounding through the " States," 
the united cry of Europe, is, that Russia would fain bestride 
the old world like a Colossus. Public opinion, from whose 
omnipotent tribunal there is no appeal in these latter days, 
has condemned her. This, then, is the moment for striking 
a heavy blow, which will prevent far heavier blows here- 
after — a blow which shall force the bloated giantess of the 
North to disgorge the fruits of her unholy rapine, to render 
back to Poland, Sweden, Persia and Turkey what once 
belonged to them. Powerful coadjutors would be found by 
you in those countries. A common hatred is a stronger 
bond of alliance than a common love. The one is a natural 
growth, the other is but a graft. Millions, while hailing you 
as their saviour, would by your moral aid alone effect their 
own salvation. Every honest man's head and heart are 
against the Czar Nicholas, and in the hour of need every 
hand, too, will be raised against him. He must yield, not in 
word only, but in deed. Material guarantees, such as he 
demanded, must in his turn be given by him, or else how 
will the account stand between Turkey and her sworn allies ? 
Pie has mocked at treaties, and it is vain, therefore, to bind 
him with parchment alone, for whenever it suited his views 
he would fling the worthless sheepskin in the faces of those 
whom he had shorn. Like the repudiators of Spain and 
America, who are a cause of reproach to their countrymen, 
he is either above or below law ; like them, he loves another 
man's goods better than his own fame ; and, like them, too, 
he should be scourged, all gentler means failing, till he com- 
ply with the requisitions of honor and honesty, and learn to 
be content with his own. 

Paris, December 22, 1853. 



143 



LETTER XXXVI. 

The ingenious but startling conclusions at which you lately 
at'rived, when commenting in no unfriendly spirit upon the 
Message of the United States' President, have led me to 
inquire, in your own words, whether, "if the Freesoilers 
insist on the promptings of their consciences, in opposition 
to the legal claims of the slaveholders, either the Union must 
be dissolved, or the Southern States subjugated by force 
to the opinion of the Northern ;" and it is consolatory to 
remark that your argument, though perfect as far as it goes, 
does not embrace all the facts in the case. Premising that 
the subjugation of one portion of the States to another is in 
itself a virtual dissolution of the Union, I would observe that 
the American Constitution is a written instrument, held in 
such high veneration that it has never yet failed to baffle the 
hand of violence and the subtle tongue, although the per- 
ishable material on which it was recorded, already shows 
the marks of age ; that out of the Constitution comes a law, 
as vital of necessity as its origin, which not only sanctions 
the institution of slavery, but guarantees it even against the 
action of the general Government itself; and that this law, 
as you truly say, the South has on its side. Now, law in ' 
the States, without ignoring Lynch law, I venture to assert 
is as potent as in England, and, too, that it is better hedged 
about by that " divinity " which is stronger than an " army 
with banners " than in any other part of the world. Where 
law, then, is so much reverenced that constable-ship is nearly a 
sinecure, and where a particular law is clearly "all on one 
side," there is no great danger, I apprehend, of Southerners 
wantonly forfeiting their vantage ground, or of Northerners 
stupidly nullifying an entire legislation under which their 



144 



ungrateful soil has become far richer than the gold-fields of 
California. 

To this first fact — respect for law and legal authority, 
inherited by Americans from an English ancestry — must 
be joined another, which is, that it is not in the power of 
Abolitionists or Freesoilers to uproot or even loosen slavery 
at the expense of the Union ; for these two sets of people, 
though in general outline resembling each other, like rats 
and mice, have neither the same habits, nor will they go in 
the same tracks. Separately they are weak, and conjointly 
they can make no progress, for there are but two things in 
common to them — a love of notoriety savoring of loaves and 
fishes, and a rickety stalking horse called, " Emancipation," 
which stands between them and their dupes. 

Then, as a third fact, the inhabitants of the non-slave- 
holding States are generally so busy about their own imme- 
diate concerns that slavery, with its attendants and conse- 
quences, very seldom enters their thoughts as a subject 
worthy of discussion. They are satisfied that the present 
arrangement in regard to it, which was made by the best 
and wisest men ever known to America, with Washington 
at their head, must be better than any that can be devised 
by certain self-constituted negro patrons, who, fortuneless for 
the most part in their previous careers, are but too happy to 
turn their hands to any job which will lift them from starv- 
ing insignificance. They believe, and with reason, that the 
black man in the Southern States is infinitely better off, 
materially speaking, than any radical change can make him; 
that morally and physically he is vastly inferior to the white 
man, whom he was born to serve ; and that, as to his spiritual 
welfare, it would be greatly advanced if his volunteer cham- 
pions, both the well-meaning and the mischievous, would 
refrain from that worse than useless interference which of 



145 



late years has compelled the slave-owner to enact laws for 
the security of life and property at the expense of the intel- 
lectual improvement of the slave. And, further, they are 
convinced — with truth on their side, I think, — that the 
extinction of slavery in the United States is an absolute 
impossibility so long as the present Constitution, the laws 
proceeding from it, and the people living under it, remain 
unchanged. Until the fifteen slave-holding States cede to the 
general Government the management of their domestic con- 
cerns, no important alteration can be effected in the condition 
of the negro, except certain ameliorations which are sure to 
follow the cessation of obtrusive intervention ; and that these 
States will ever unite in such a self-sacrificing measure is not 
for a moment to be supposed. 

But, even if the Government at Washington had the 
unlimited control of the matter, what could be done ? Could 
instant emancipation be granted ? As well might you your- 
selves let loose your beasts of burden and draught cattle to 
pasture on the fertile fields of England, Avhile you took on 
your own shoulders the harness and the yoke. Or would 
gradual emancipation be preferred? Gradual emancipation 
and gradual amputation I reckon in the same category. 

After much reflection, I am happy to differ from those 
who are of opinion that the institution of slavery will ever 
prove the occasion or the means of riving a?under the 
American Union. I can never be persuaded that the unde- 
fined and equivocal rights of three millions, or of three 
times three millions of blacks, who have in every way gained 
by the transplantation of their ancestors, will upset the 
definite interests of twenty-five millions of whites, which in 
twenty-five years will become the interests of fifty millions. 
No ; it is not slavery that will undo the great work of Wash- 
ington when its day of doom shall arrive, but it will be that 



146 

against which he in his solemn, his all but inspired, farewell 
address cautioned his fellow-countrymen. He told them to 
beware of mixing themselves up with the affairs of others, 
and by implication he bid them be content with their own ; 
for it is perfectly obvious that neither he nor his great and 
good coadjutors ever anticipated such a national calamity as 
the passion of annexation. It must be admitted, however, 
that the acquisition of the province of Louisiana fifteen 
years subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution, out 
of which three States were formed, although mere territory 
was not the immediate object in view, was a wise and even 
necessary measure, because without it the mouths of the 
great rivers of the West which empty into the Gulf of 
Mexico, would, in the hand of strangers, have been per- 
petual issues of evil. Florida was attached to the United 
States under nearly similar circumstances ; but as for Texas, 
the annexation of that country, called for by no political 
necessity, was a blunder, the inevitable result of which was 
war, and the end of which we have yet to see. 

And yet, notwithstanding this greediness of territory, 
which will receive its due reward only when the mongrel 
population of Mexico become voters, there is one principle 
of duration, perhaps of permanent safety, in the United 
States' Union, which M. de Tocqueville in his Democracy 
most forcibly describes, when contrasting it with the antago- 
nistic principle that prevails in the Russian Empire. Twenty- 
five years ago this profound thinker, whose spirit borders on 
the prophetic, thus wrote: — "The one (the American) 
employs liberty as his principal means ; the other (the Rus- 
sian) makes use of servitude. Their points of departure 
are different, their roads are not the same ; nevertheless, each 
of them seems called by the hidden design of Providence 
to hold some day or other the destinies of one-half of the 
world in his hands." 



147 



Now, liberty is a strong staff, and the popular principle, 
which lives in other lands besides America, is the best staff 
with which to beat back Russia into her due proportions. It 
is the "peoples," not the sovereigns, that can dwarf her, 
for beyond a certain point she is invulnerable to attacks from 
the West. But let the several countries which she has sub- 
dued and degraded, once feel sure of being loyally backed by 
England and France in the struggle to recover their rights, 
and the Czar's sixty millions would soon dwindle to one-half, 
greatly to the advantage of your Indian Empire. 

Paris, December 31, 1853. 



LETTER XXXVII. 

Since the commencement of the war with Russia there has 
now and then appeared in the English papers an expression 
of surprise, real or affected, that the Americans, in their sym- 
pathies, are not on your side. It has been attempted to be 
shown how, by every calculation of self-interest, they ought to 
set their faces against the Czar, and pray for blessings on his 
enemies. They have been repeatedly told how poor and lim- 
ited is their commerce with the barbarians of the North, and 
how rich and boundless is their intercourse with those who are 
"fighting the battles of liberty and civilization." On the one 
hand, motives the most mercenary are presented to a people 
who, if greedy of gain, are lavish of expense ; and, on the 
other, the most Jesuitical warnings are uttered against the 
contagion of a despotic Government, when the English them- 
selves are in closest contact with another Government which 
is not a whit less despotic either in theory or in practice. 



148 



"Without stopping to decide whether Americans are more 
benevolently inclined to Russia than to those who, in spite 
of negative protestations, are evidently straining every nerve 
to humiliate her, it is not difficult to comprehend why such a 
disposition should be not uncommon throughout the States. 
If I mistake not, there exists a strong and general conviction 
among disinterested persons that the present frightful struggle 
between Christian nations in arms is a disgrace to the nine- 
teenth century ; that the object of it is as unattainable and 
unwise as it is indefensible ; that no contingent or prospective 
danger to Europe or to India was sufficiently menacing to jus- 
tify in the sight of God the slaughter of His chief handi-work 
on earth at the rate of 200,000 souls a year, or in the sight of 
man the destruction of his hard earnings, so as to outstrip the 
almost miraculous productiveness of the present day ; and 
that when Russia consents, as she has done, to the demands 
of the allies concerning the Sultan's Greek subjects, the pro- 
tectorate of the Principalities, and the navigation of the Dan- 
ube, to require her, in the plenitude of her strength and the 
height of her pride, to assist in tying her own hands, is an in- 
dignity to which none would submit, save a fool who is more 
than one-half coward. Is it to be wondered at then, if, among 
other impartial observers, some Americans be found who, see- 
ing Russia banned as an annexionist by the allies, call upon 
these, as another set of self-righteous accusers were once ex- 
horted, to " cast the first stone ?" 

If American sympathies do indeed lean towards him 
against whom, single-handed as he fights, are banded the hosts 
of the West, some good reasons may perhaps be suggested 
for what is in your esteem an unnatural state of feeling. 
While English diplomatists and consuls have been unwearied 
in their efforts to circumvent and destroy American influence 
on American territory, the Russian Government has not only 



149 



always maintained amicable relations with that of the United 
States, but it has never attempted to thwart American agents 
in the performance of their duties. Nor has a Russian Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs at any time ever formally and delib- 
erately enunciated, as did Lord Clarendon, an intention to 
undertake the supervision of matters on the other side of the 
Atlantic. It was not Russian, but English, accredited agents 
who, aided by French officials, have within a few years suc- 
ceeded in baffling the United States' Government in designs 
which, if accomplished, would have benefited the commerce 
of all nations. The Sandwich Islands, St. Domingo and the 
State of Ecuador on the Pacific, bear witness to their mischie- 
vous and clever machinations. England, likewise, through 
her representative, tried to force upon the Central American 
Government of Guatemala a Belgian colonization treaty, ex- 
ecrated and repudiated by that Government, she herself being 
under bonds to the United States not to settle any of her own 
subjects in that quarter of the world. 

Then, again, the English Press, not to be slack in offending 
those whom it is bound by duty and interest to conciliate* 
never lets slip an opportunity for abusing and ridiculing the 
Americans, not even when to do so it is necessary to confound 
a few outlawed men, aliens for the most part, with the whole 
nation. Whether it be the atrocious seizure of a harmless 
trading ship by Cuban underlings, or the untoward arrest of a 
plenipotentiary, the occasion is pounced upon with a rabid- 
ness which shows how venomous is the intent that lies behind. 
I know your reply will be, as it has been, that you are in the 
habit of roughly handling your own Government and govern- 
ors, not excepting evenRoyalty itself, when by chance a "tru- 
ant disposition" untimeously appears, and that therefore you 
are cpjite at liberty to speak your mind about others. But 
there is a wide difference between one who is at liberty to 
answer and one who has no organ of communication. 



150 

Some people have fancied that there is another good cause 
for loving you less and the Russians more. They believe that, 
before now, had not you and the French Emperor had Russia 
on your hands, Spain, like Turkey, would have become the 
stalking horse of the two first maritime Powers of Europe 
for the prosecution of a Crimean expedition in the Western 
Hemisphere. Whatever credit may have been due to this 
surmise matters very little at present, with your impossible 
task before you, since it is pretty clear that no contrivance 
and no application of physical force can permanently deprive 
Russia of a predominance in the Black Sea, for which she is 
indebted to nature and to circumstances that are independent 
of the durable control of her enemies. Austria, you may be 
sure, will never draw a sword to destroy it, her own constitu- 
tion and conditions of existence being too dependent on Rus- 
sian influences to encourage her in an act so bold. From the 
beginning, not through wantonness, but weakness, she has 
been playing fast and loose with the two allies of the West, 
whose diplomatic agents, however, to do them justice, knowing 
the ticklish and dangerous nature of the party, adroitly hu- 
mored her, as one does a nervous horse, who may do as he is 
bid, or free himself of the harness at a jump. Whatever may 
be the cause, there is no denying that Austria has never gone 
heartily with you, and at your utmost need, rely upon it, she 
will be found wanting. If Russia were not sure of this, do 
you imagine that she would dare to reject your conditions of 
peace ? — that she would be mad enough to resist a world in 
arms, such as would be Austria, England, France, and Tur- 
key, united in head, hand and heart ? 

Allow me to repeat, in the only journal whose universal 
currency tempts one to address it, that if there be any hostile 
sentiment in Amei'ica towards the allies, apart from the jus- 
tice or injustice of their cause, it is in a great measure owing 



151 



to the intrigues of foreign agents and to the calumnies of a 
foreign Press. In the course of time the latter bane may 
furnish its own appropriate antidote ; but it seems «nS if no 
teachings of experience could ever convince the rulers of 
mankind that in national as in individual concerns unauthor- 
ized meddling is always presumptuous, and may be dangerous. 

History in many instances confirms my words, and, to go 
no further back than three score years and ten, what have the 
inhabitants of Great Britain gained by quixotically, and al- 
ways in a thankless cause, launching themselves upon the 
broad sea of battle, murder and sudden death, but a crushing 
debt, which it dizzies the brain to reckon, and a continental un- 
popularity, which fifty alliances can never extinguish ? 

Be persuaded, then, in time that all foreign interference is 
an ill-paid trade, that the sooner it is abandoned in the East 
the better it will be for you, and that the less it is practised in 
the West the more prosperous will be your condition.* 

Paris, May 9, 1855. 



* We adverted cursorily on a former occasion to a letter -which ap- 
peared in our columns from an able correspondent, well known to our 
readers under the signature, not inapplicable to him in either sense, of a 
14 BtatES-MAN." The object of our correspondent is not what we should 
hoped it would have been, — to clear the free men of America from 
the stigma implied in the charge that the sympathies of America are 
not on our side. To the great mass of men, who judge matters on 
their first aspect, and have neither leisure nor inclination to sound 
the depths of political questions, there is something shocking and 
even revolting, in the admission that, though policy may keep the 
United States neutral in the present contest, and interest may plead 
as loudly in favor of Russia as of England and France, the feelings 
and sympathies of America, the conscience and heart of the nation, 
which are not under the control of interest nor subject to considera- 
tions of State policy, side with the Powers of the East in their pres- 
ent deadly struggle with the Powers of the West. — Times. 



152 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

When Oxenstiern, the Chancellor of Sweden, whom Crom- 
well called " the wise man of the Continent," was about to 
send his son on a visit to foreign Courts, he said to him, " Go 
and see by what fools the world is governed ; " and, if the 
dead could speak, might not we in our day hear the self-same 
lips exclaiming, " Go and see by what consummate folly the 
world is set and kept on fire ? " 

According to English authority, the rulers of three great 
nations, superficially regarding the current of events and 
neglecting the tide of the times, have allowed their countries 
to " drift into a war," which, in spite of attempts to " make 
the worse appear the better reason," many wise and experi- 
enced men think might have been warded off indefinitely, 
without detriment to freedom or to civilization, but which now, 
though man may continue it, Heaven or accident alone can 
ever bring to a close. While thus repeating what others say, 
I admit that an American, whatever may be his sympathies, 
has no excuse for meddling in the gigantic tragedy of the age, 
except so far as the rights of his country may be concerned. 

But the neutral rights of his country, by English confes- 
sion, have been violated, and that, too, w T ith pre-meditation, 
on American soil ; and though there is no proof as yet that 
this violation carried with it an intent to slight or offend the, 
American Government or people, a summary vindication of 
public law became necessary. In attempting this there was 
no delay, and if the flagrant error committed had been frankly 
acknowledged, with suitable apology and atonement — of 
which we have heard much, but know nothing — even the 
semblance of a quarrel would never have appeared. But no ! 



153 



the occasion to serve some crooked purpose of their own was 
too tempting for such men as Oxenstiern described ; hence 
the sharp practice so lately witnessed, which has set a deal of 
bitter blood in motion, provoked unseemly language and re- 
vived unwelcome reminiscences. 

While some assert that the American Attorney-General 
wrote certain letters on speculation for a rise in the political 
market, — letters, by-the-by, from one officer of the Govern- 
ment to another, and therefore beyond the precincts of every 
foreign tribunal, — others suggest that the English Prime 
Minister sent his ships across the Atlantic to operate 01: the 
nerves of the corn-holders for a fall, — a menace, whatever 
may have been the motive, directed against the most sensitive 
portion of the American coast, which imperatively demands, 
under existing circumstances, the amplest satisfaction. For 
it is now generally conceded, I believe, that the United States 
cannot be dragooned, as Greece was in the Don Pacifico 
squabble, and surely no sane man seriously apprehends the 
invasion of Ireland or of Cuba by the American Government 
itself, or by any body of misguided men, whom, if my recol- 
lection of a certain Boulogne expedition fail not, that Gov- 
ernment is quite as able and willing as the English to cir- 
cumvent. 

Notwithstanding, however, the " consummate folly " re- 
cently exhibited in high quarters, it is not probable that the 
late disreputable bickerings will produce any worse mischief 
than what you yourself have already indicated as the disas- 
trous consequence, at some future day, of habitually playing 
with edged tools by the present generation. And yet, should 
our blustering and blundering official " gothamists " succeed 
in embroiling two nations which are under every possible bond 
to keep the peace towards each other, truth to tell, there would 
not be much more cause for wonder than there is in the contest 
7 



154 



which, every day we live, is turning the riches of man to 
nought, and sending the owner of them unhouselled to his 
last account. 

Every legitimate cause of dissenlion between England and 
the United States having been some time ago removed, those 
Powers, if forced into a fight by snarling and bullying politi- 
cians, must, to be logical, continue to fight on till, wearied and 
disgusted at their own unnatural conduct, they are ready to 
cry, like children, in each others' faces, unless, perchance, 
they should sagely resolve to prosecute the matter in Kilken- 
ny fashion to the latter end. The demoralizing effects on 
both sides alike of such a warfare would be deplorable in- 
deed ; but in a political point of view, if the experiment was 
not of too long duration, America would, perhaps, be benefit- 
ed, for that country seems to need a little rough experience 
from without, now and then, to inculcate on her too happy 
children the "value of the Union," and to weld anew the 
State-links, which are apt to lose somew! at of their tenacity 
in the atmosphere of a long uninterrupted peace. 

And, even materially speaking, it is not so clear that the 
more youthful of the parties would be the greater sufferer. 
The American commercial marine would probably be dam- 
aged, as it was in the war of 1812, to the extent of about 25 
per cent., portions of the seaboard might be plundered or laid 
waste, and the blood of millions might, a second time, be 
made to boil over the flames of a desecrated capitol. But, to 
more than balance such wholesale devastation, which, how- 
ever, could be easily remedied, though not forgotten, how 
would England fare, and what would be her expiation ? For 
every American dollar destroyed she would forfeit, directly or 
indirectly, the fifth of a pound sterling ; and, whether her 
colonial possessions remained untouched or not by hostile foot, 
what would be her condition at home, even if safe from 
foreign aggression, with everything stagnant, save the un- 



155 



bridled passions of thousands of workmen without work ? 
Why, unless she could grow corn in her streets, and rake up 
cotton from the seashore, her parks, her halls, nay, her very 
firesides would be invaded by a host of the naked, whom no 
tricks of office could cover, and of the starving, whom no 
honeyed words of Statecraft could send empty away. 
Paris, Nov. 21, 1855. 



LETTER XXXIX. 

Notwithstanding the fallen estate of man, there must be an 
innate virtue in human nature which redeems it from the ca- 
lamitous effects of misgovernment, or long ago the world 
would have become one universal scene of discord, if not of 
dissolution. Notwithstanding that the normal condition of 
our species, ever since Cain beat out his brother's brains, has 
been one of war, yet, thanks to the Christian religion, to the 
civilizing influences of commerce, to the better instruction of 
communities, and, by consequence, to the increased pressure 
of public opinion upon public action, wars have become less 
frequent and of less duration. Few and scant, however, are 
the obligations which any nation in our clay is under to its 
Ministers — its head servants — for a peaceful present or for 
the prospect of a prosperous future. Every improvement in 
respect to these must he imputed in large proportion to pri- 
vate individual excellence, and very seldom to official worth. 
Theoretically, the best and wisest men rule over us, but prac- 
tically they seem the reverse of good and wise when tested 
by results, and whenever the ends which crowrt their works 
are compared with the ends which crown the works of others, 
who serve directly neither Prince, nor President, nor any 
earthly Power Supreme. 



156 



A man of much experience in the highways of the world 
once exclaimed, "Political honesty is a monstrous anomaly !" 
And I am somewhat inclined to believe that he was not far 
wrong — that political professions of faith and political prac- 
tice may fairly be put upon a par with dicers' oaths and lov- 
ers' deeds. Had common honesty and discretion, for exam- 
ple, been the rule of action among the magnates of the earth 
during the last two years and upwards, would France and 
Russia have ventured on the dangerous game they did, their 
only stake the right of entry to a church ? Would England 
have dealt so loosely in menace that at length her wares were 
held to be base metal ? Would France have dwelt so long in 
doubtful action that the Czar was completely duped ? Sup- 
posing that honesty and frankness had pervaded the councils 
of nations — supposing that Austria had declared her intent 
never to aid any one but by much talking, that Prussia had an- 
nounced her determination to take heed to herself alone, 
that Sardinia had shown her resolve to throw herself into the 
fight as she has done, and that Sweden had proclaimed her 
decision never to fling her sword into the Russian scale, 
would Nicholas have ever dared what he did dare ? Would 
not the world now be richer by a million of souls or more, with 
time enough to square their dread accounts, and by millions 
on millions of money, which can never be redeemed, though 
it may be replaced ? Tf private enterprises were subordinate 
to the same clumsy and " crooked wisdom" which turns awry 
the current of public events, where would have been our rail- 
ways and canals, our telegraphs and our steamships? If the 
clerks of a great commercial establishment, from the clerk 
confidential to the embryo copyist, had taken for examples 
the Ministerial servants of Queen Victoria or of the United 
States, what would have been their fate ? Certificates of in- 
different honesty, by a stretch of criminal compassion, might 



157 

possibly have been accorded to the discharged delinquents, 
but a profound silence, I apprehend, would have been kept as 
to their active sense of duty and as to their performance of 
that duty. 

Owing to a negligent, dilatory and slipshod manner of 
doing business, two subjects of dissension, which any clear- 
headed man of honor could have settled in the course of 
twenty-four hours, have thrown into violent commotion two na- 
tions which, in the words of one of your foremost writers, " are 
bound together more than two nations ever were by a sim- 
ilarity of interests." The late Minister of the United States 
to England, I am told on good authority, was assured from 
the moment of his arrival in that country of the ardent desire 
of the English Government to be well quit of Central Amer- 
ica and of everything pertaining to it, provided that the rid- 
dance could be effected without any sacrifice of honor. And 
what was there to prevent your shaking off such an un- 
profitable encumbrance, I should like to know, without stop- 
ping to question the wisdom of ever having assumed it ? The 
only answer which I have as yet received, that it would not 
do for you to be clamored and bullied out of your asserted 
rights, is far from being satisfactory. When we behold an 
empty-handed individual, in cotton frock, boldly asserting his 
real or supposed rights in front of a steel-clad gentleman, re- 
volver in hand, that man we may " write clown ass," if we 
will, or christen him fool, but coward or bully — companions 
close akin — never, while our vernacular shall remain in 
joint. 

In spite of incessant and indecent charges against the 
American character in the European Press, both of recent 
and ancient date, I much doubt if Americans are more pos- 
sessed of the spirit of bullyism than other men. With their 
handful of ships opposed to your navy, " such as ocean never 



158 



bore before," and with their apology for an army to set in ar- 
ray against an English force, " such as no Englishmen ever 
yet commanded," I put it to your common sense and good 
judgment whether it is likely that my countrymen ever enter- 
tained the wild and silly no f ion of brow-beating yours. It is 
ungenerous, nay, it is useless, the attempt to shift the weigh- 
tier mass of blame from English to American shoulders. 
The " letting out of waters" began on this side of the ocean, 
when you sent to Washington a negotiator of treaties who 
had proved himself at Madrid, as 1 heard his fellow-diplomat- 
ist call him, " Le moins intelligent de tons leu Jiommes d 'es- 
prit" But it must be owned, on the other hand, that his 
American collaborator in that bungling job, the Bulwer-Clay- 
ton treaty, gains nothing by comparison with him. Then, 
much mischief was caused by Lord Clarendon's inadvertent 
speech about the English and French superintendence of 
American affairs, the ill effects of which he ti'ied every means 
but the right one to remedy. Instead of simply telling his 
fellow-lords that a wrong construction had been put upon his 
words, (a declaration which would have been hailed by every 
American with delight and unbounded credence), his Lord- 
ship, it seems, contented himself with writing a note to Gen- 
eral Webb, having a talk with Mr. Buchanan, and indicting 
a despatch to Mr. Crampton. And now, after the lapse of 
many months, by a rare chance, the parties who are most in- 
terested begin to see a little daylight where, indeed, there 
ought never to have been the slightest obscurity. Was there 
ever a more slovenly procedure? Quite as carelessly was 
the abitration proposition managed. Her Majesty's Secretary 
for Foreign Affairs spoke about it to the American Minister 
in London, wrote about it to to her representative in Wash- 
ington, then discoursed about it and of its rejection and re- 
newal, and now the whole turns out to be a great mistake 



159 



and mystification. Time has been lost, ill feelings have been 
aroused, unfounded .complaints have been uttered, and the 
work must be commenced anew. Is it for such trilling that 
men in othce are paid and pampered ? Afterwards comes the 
enlistment affair — "a ridiculous cause of quarrel," you may 
say, but for that very reason the more dangerous, and the 
more quickly to be disposed of in peaceful fashion. If Eng- 
land and America are doomed to fight, (for the comfort of the 
chronicler, now and ever, if from no higher motive), let it be 
for something tangible, definable, and of real importance — 
something which one side insists upon baving, and which the 
other persists in refusing. In such a fight the parties would 
have at least the satisfaction of knowing which of them car- 
ried the point in dispute. But, even in this matter of enlist- 
ment, it was not the Americans who lifted the " first stone." 
Your sapient rulers " relied on American advice and infor- 
mation," they say, when the only advice and information they 
needed were to be met with in law books common to every- 
body. Your special pleading in their behalf is a deal too 
fine. They would not for the world " hire or retain" on 
American soil, contrary to written law, a single man to serve 
Queen Victoria; but they would "make generally knoAvn" 
their Avillingness to receive such service. And pray where 
is the mighty difference in the eye of morality and of honor, 
aye, and even of law itself, if the question could be fairly 
tested, between impudently " hiring and retaining" by high 
inducements my neighbor's servants or dependents to quit his 
roof for mine, and the "making it generally known" to them 
that if they will sneakingly give me the preference a warm 
reception shall await them? Then, the enlisting agents must 
needs " make generally known" their mission on every wall 
and from every house-top. Indeed, so openly and success- 
fully did they perform their parts, that even the " Blue 



160 



Noses" of Nova Scotia, whom that veracious historian, Mr. 
Samuel Slick, never accused of " smartness," mocked at the 
sharpsighted Yankees for having been outwitted by provin- 
cials. 

But, as it turned out, those Avho were acting as enrollers, 
directly or indirectly, for the English Government, had 
blundered from the beginning: "like master, like man." 
Their manoeuvres might possibly have been winked at, had 
they not been forced upon the attention of the public ; and 
much bickering would have thus been spared. At one time 
the stoppage of proceedings by authority of English Minis- 
ters, and an apology, with promise of forbearance for the 
future, seemed about to set all things right, when an untoward 
discovery came to show how difficult it is to repair a first 
false step. The English Minister at Washington is now 
charged with being a complice in the "ridiculous affair." 
Incredible as is the accusation, still more incredible is it 
that without incontrovertible proof such an accusation should 
have been brought against a gentleman of Mr. Crampton's 
acknowledged virtues by those who have always held him in 
the highest esteem. 

And here, in the 1857th year of the Lord of Peace, are 
seen two great nations, who have not in their common blood 
a single drop of bitterness the one towards the other, nor in 
their common concerns a single cause for shedding blood, in 
a state of uncertainty whether they may not wake some 
morning to find themselves defacing God's image in the per- 
son of a kinsman, and destroying by wholesale the witty 
inventions of man, such as none but a being once little lower 
than the angels could have devised. And all this because 
of the littleness of our great men ! Interminable scribblers ! 
they have proved themselves the veriest know nothings and 
do-nothings under the sun. In America, as in England, the 



161 



square and the round holes are most unartistically filled ; 
and, impatient at seeing the material interests of nations 
banded about, I sometimes fancy, forgetful for the moment of 
interests infinitely higher, that if a Cromwell or a Napoleon 
could come to judgment now and then, the right men might 
fall into the right places, and that the world would swing 
more easily on its hinges than it does just at this moment in 
your country or in mine. 
Paris, March 2G, 1856. 



LETTER XL. 

Some persons believe, and many fear, that war between 
Great Britain and the United States will be the upshot of the 
wily expedients, flat contradictions, and sharp practice which, 
growing out of the Bulwer-Clayton treaty and the recruiting 
scheme, have lately kept the reflecting, moral, industrious, and 
really responsible portions of two great communities in a 
state of wonderment bordering upon terror. Sharing neither 
the belief nor the fear of such persons, it would seem to me a 
very idle task to address myself to the subject of their appre- 
hensions, were it not that in the history of human folly all 
things are possible — even that apprehensions the best founded 
may degenerate by their very intensity into indifference, 
thereby encouraging the self-willed audacity or presumptuous 
malignity of agents, especially those most highly placed, when 
left to themselves, to indulge in the wildest freaks of state- 
craft. For this reason, methinks, it behoves us, the people, 
Englishmen and Americans, to bestir ourselves now, and so to 
use whatever influence each one may have, as to make the 
7* 



I 



162 



will of our public servants subordinate and subservient to our 
wills, giving tliese gentlemen to understand, cither by public 
meetings or other constitutional means, that we "will have 
neither wars nor the rumors of wars to torment us, except 
for reasons good and sufficient in our own eyes. It is the 
height of absurdity to hope that such pettifogging politics as 
have abounded of late in Anglo-American relations can by 
any possibility be consistent with a permanent well-being be- 
tween two countries holding an equally high rank. I pretend 
not to parcel out the blame as it should rest on this side or on 
that. The well where truth has been sunk is too deep for 
my penetration. Neither do I assert that in every matter of 
difference the Americans can fairly cast the " first stone ; " nor 
do I deny that they have as much glass to be broken at home 
as other nations have. Of special pleading we have already 
had more than enough, and no pleadings, by whatever argu- 
ments backed, can make void the one fact that the " recruitment 
difficulty," with all its untoward fruits, is of English root and 
growth. Most emphatically may it be declared that this "first 
step " was not like other proverbial first steps, the only one 
involving a heavy cost ; and the less worthy of consideration 
will they be regarded who took it, when it is remembered 
how logically and eloquently the " English Press," The Times, 
condemned it, and how fervently the best men in Parliament 
resisted it, never yielding till the last moment, and then 
against their better judgment, to the ignoble threat of Minis- 
ters to resign office if not allowed to be delivered of their 
foreign bantling. 

But, though England did make a false move, that was no 
reason for ungenerously keeping her in a false position. If, 
as you have often asserted, and doubtless believe, an apology 
fur the violation of the American recruitment laws was ever 
roundly made, free from all peddling self-justification and ac- 



103 



cusatory remonstrance, and accompanied Ly a promise of 
forbearance hereafter, comprised in the recognition of a great 
principle — the only thing worth weighing in the balance of 
a great nation — then that apology ought to have been frankly 
and loyally accepted. But was such an apology ever made? 
I doubt it ; for, had it been nobly given, it would have been 
generously received, because the Americans are not a mean- 
spirited people, nor are their rulers insensible to public opin- 
ion, notwithstanding the monstrous productions of English 
pens, which have almost convinced the European world that 
we are a set of piratical freebooters, and indeed "little better 
than one of the damned." 

While the phantom apology was bandied about, the 
" complicity " of the English Minister in Washington surged 
above the troubled surface of politics to add vexation to 
the strife. Whether Mr. Crampton was guilty or not guilty 
of the charge brought against him, is not worthy of a guess. 
He affirmed upon his honor, and his Government endorsed 
his affirmation, that he was innocent, and thereupon, had a 
suitable apology existed, the leaves which bore witness to 
this pitiful passage in the history of two kindred nations 
should have been torn from the record. But the quarrel had 
been aggravated, and some persons, not ill-inclined to the 
representative of England, fancied, from what they knew of 
him, that he might have been unwittingly blameworthy even 
while thinking himself safe on the windy side of honesty. 
The truth, in my opinion, is, that Mr. Crampton was not up 
to his work, and that second or third-rate men are not fit to 
represent the English nation in the capital of the United 
States. The States can no more have little affairs to manage 
than England can have " little wars " to wage. Americans, 
the foremost of the first, personate their country at the 
Court of St. James's, and pray on what principle do you 



164 

send a dwarf to do a giant's work in an atmosphere where 
none but the strongest can thrive? Genius, talent — nay, 
even knavery itself, if coupled with intelligence, can be 
accurately gauged and can be turned to some account, but 
dullness or stupidity, like a bog or quagmire, is susceptible 
of no measure, and defies all calculation. 
Paris, June 7, 1856. 



LETTERS 



TO THE 



]\ T EW YORK COURIER AND ENQUIRER." 



LETTER I. 



* As the present is an interesting moment to all who are 
concerned in the affairs of Europe, it may be that your nu- 
merous readers would like to receive, from one on this side of 
the water, an account of the impressions made upon his mind 
by certain events, which have lately taken the lead of all 
others in attracting public attention. I allude, of course, to 
the " Spanish marriages," as they are called, and I make use 
of the unpretending word impressions, because the whole 
affair is so thickly clothed with well devised and authentic 
statements and counter-statements, in form and substance per- 
fectly incompatible with each other, that anything like a pre- 
cise knowledge of facts in the case, defying contradictions, it 
would be equally foolhardy and absurd to assume. As it ap- 
pears to me then that you may possibly welcome my letter, 

* We take great pleasure in laying before our readers the following letter 
from an American resident in Paris, who has heretofore done his country 
very essential service by able, well timed and effective replies, through the 
London Times, to the virulent denunciations of the British Press. — Courier 
and Enquirer. 



166 



not for any merit in its execution, but for the rarity of its 
matter, just as you might the description of a bull-fight, or 
of any other buflfoonry, I will send it for publication. 

According to an act of renunciation passed in 1712, by the 
Duke of Orleans for himself and descendants, and the declar- 
ation of Philip V. of Spain, made in the same year ; accord- 
ing to a treaty between Austria and Spain, signed in 1725 ; 
and in accordance with the Spanish Constitution adopted in 
1845, wherein reference is made to the treaty of Utrecht, it 
seems, or at least we are told, that not only was provision 
made against the crowns of France and Spain falling upon the 
same head, but also against the latter of these baubles ever 
resting upon the brow of any son of Orleans. That this was, 
and continues to be, the general interpretation of the instru- 
ments above cited, is evident from the angry remonstrances 
lately made on all sides to the French King's marriage of his 
son to the Infanta of Spain ; and that it was the interpreta- 
tion hitherto apprehended, if not actually put upon them, by 
Louis Philippe himself, is likewise evident from the secrecy 
and precipitancy with which his matrimonial schemes have 
been conducted. The marriages of the Spanish Queen to 
her cousin, and of her sister to the Duke of Montpensier, are 
now what are here described as facts accomplished, and that 
which preceded them, whether infamous or outrageous in re- 
gard to the person of the youthful Sovereign, as the London 
Times asserts, or tricky and fraudulent in regard to every 
step in the proceedings, as all the world believes, will 
furnish materials for history, if history be so fortunate as ever 
to lay her hands upon the facts. The Times, and I need not 
tell you it is by far the best published authority in Europe, 
without entering upon details, more than intimates that most 
unmanly violence, and at the defenceless hour of midnight, 
was excercised towards the occupant of the Spanish throne ; 



107 



in which, from enquiries made in different quarters likely to 
be well informed, I am inclined to think it is not mistaken. 
What, this violence was, will perhaps never be known more 
accurately than it is now ; but that a dissolute mother, whose 
life has heen a libel on her sex, and a crafty kinsman, whose 
age and experience should have taught him better things, con- 
spired to bring about a consummation eagerly coveted by 
both, through means not unlike those which Lot's daughters 
employed, is openly proclaimed and not discredited. 

Moreover, it is believed that M. Guizot and his iron-willed 
but fair-of-speeeh master, have over-reached and out-witted 
the English cabinet, have played falsely, and by slight of 
hand and an odd trick, have won the game. But let them 
both look to it, for if Lord Palmerston and his compeers be 
judged aright, when it is least expected, another Syrian stab 
will let out the superfluous humors of this fast-and-loose cou- 
ple, or another Tahiti coup de main will draggle them 
through the mud again. 

But to present the facts of the case according to their sup- 
posed truth : Louis Philippe and his first Minister, or rather 
head clerk, entered with the English Ministry into an agree- 
ment respecting the Spanish marriages, which they have 
since seen fit to violate. It is true they assert the contrary, 
but as yet their words are not credited ; for instead of deny- 
ing the compact, they have recourse to excuses, and instead 
of justifying their own conduct, they vainly attempt to crimi- 
nate that of others. England is charged by them with having 
actively favored a Coburg Prince, contrary to her pledged word, 
thereby liberating France from her engagements ; and when 
a home-thrust, in the shape of a protest, was made by the 
English Minister, the French King's reply, as I had it from 
one of the diplomatic corps, (neither an Englishman nor an 
American), amounted almost word for word, to this: " That 



168 



he had a perfect right to marry his son to any princess in 
Europe, and by consequence to a Spanish one ; but that if a 
question ever rose as to the right of the Duke of Montpen- 
sier's children to the Spanish throne, he should stand by, an 
idle spectator, leaving it to be decided wholly by the Spanish 
people themselves." 

The upshot of the matter is, that the French King, though 
he loved the English alliance much, loved Spanish gold more ; 
and having found he could go without English crutches, he 
flattered himself that English support could be altogether dis- 
pensed with. But I for one believe him to be mistaken in 
this. Hitherto he has been able to marry his children only 
to petty German or foreign princes and princesses, poorer, 
with one exception, in every thing, save blood, than most pri- 
vate gentleman possessed of what is usually considered a for- 
tune ; and he was too happy to ally himself with one of the 
great houses of Europe, not to mention that the dazzling 
dowry in view — the unrighteous fruits of plunder — was to 
him, whose darling vice is what Byron calls the " good, old 
gentlemanly one," a temptation stronger than Ms flesh and 
blood could withstand. 

And what is to come of all this ? Very like before long a 
civil war, or something as bad, may be again raging in Spain, 
and that beautiful, but degraded, country may become once 
more the battle field for those, who always were and always 
will be antagonists, notwithstanding the incessant billing and 
cooing that have been going on of late years. If they do not 
come to actual blows themselves, they will strike not the less 
fiercely with the arms of others. At all events the entente 
cordiale is ended, and all sincere men must be glad to see that 
heart-sickening and hypocritical farce finished. It was never 
a feeling more than skin-deep, and always reminded me of a 
ferocious tiger whipped into good behavior, and a surly mas- 



169 



tiff coaxed into decency ; because it is no secret that an Eng- 
lishman despises a Frenchman, just in proportion as he is 
hated in return. 

Now all this should be no subject of mourning to us Ameri- 
cans, for the more snarling and growling there is, the less dis- 
posed will either side be to impertinent meddling in our af- 
fairs, and for the future there need be no fear that any party 
will be anxious to put its hand between the wood and the 
bark, as was attempted to be done during cur negotiations for 
Texas. 

Paris, Oct. 17, 184G. 



LETTER II. 

It appears to me that the more honest a man is, the more 
likely he is to be taken in by a designing knave — that is, the 
first time, but not the second, unless to his honesty be united a 
most inordinate share of silliness. Now the English, as every 
body knows, have lately been shamelessly duped by the French 
King at Madrid, — so shamelessly, indeed, that the sense of 
humiliation was lost sight of for a moment in their anger at 
having been over-reached. And yet no one, whose opinion is 
of value, thinks the less worthily of them on that account. But 
if, after such mortifying experience, they be deluded again by 
that mockery, called an entente cordiale, into once more em- 
barking their fortunes in the same boat with the Royal Es- 
camoteur, what but their own simplicity will they have to 
thank for every consequence, however disastrous, should they 
spring a leak, which his keen wit alone foresaw, perhaps con- 
trived, and solely provided against ? Still, incredible as you 



170 

may think it, such a result is not at all impossible, if we are 
to judge from the dulcet notes which are now daily exchanged 
across the Channel. 

At first the English Press could find no abuse sharp enough 
to inflict upon the perpetrators of the " Spanish fraud." Nei- 
ther Louis Philippe, nor his Ministry, nor his Ambassador, the 
immediate agent in the transaction, escaped the execrations 
which, it was evident, some, if not all of them, deserved. 
Upon the Unanointed himself, for, as you are aware, the 
French King has never ventured upon a coronation, the Eng- 
lish Secretary for Foreign Affairs was heard by one of my 
friends to bestow an epithet peculiar to our vernacular, richly 
merited, but rather too strong for repetition in a public jour- 
nal. The British Queen, filled with grief at a slight cast 
upon the pretensions of her kinsman of Coburg blood, and 
with indignation as at a personal affront, like Rachel, " refus- 
ed to be comforted," and, as I have learned within an hour 
from a gentleman just returned to Paris from the royal pres- 
ence, still " cries aloud and spares not." In a word, one uni- 
versal shout of reprobation was wafted from Dover to Calais, 
to be clamorously echoed and responded to here, when all at 
once the fate of Cracow, in very natural sequence- to the folly 
at Madrid, was sounded in the ears of Europe, and the scene 
changed. France and England, seeing at a glance that the 
very first moment of dissension between them had been seiz- 
ed upon by a Power, equally watchful and unscrupulous, as 
an occasion long desired for annihilating the last remnant of 
Polish independence, hastened to lower the high tone hitherto 
assumed towards each other, and to put on at least a show of 
decency and moderation. But in so doing, more than one of 
the principal organs of public opinion did not hesitate to de- 
clare their conviction that Louis Philippe not only well knew 
for months what were the intentions of the Northern Powers, 



171 



but acquiesced in them for the purpose of advancing his own 
family interests and of securing to himself a quiet life. And 
they might have added that not only for months, but for years, 
has he been accessory to an enormous crime against the rights 
of man. For as long ago as 1833, a secret treaty was entered 
into by Russia, Prussia and Austria to the effect that, " on a 
concurrence of certain circumstances," Cracow, in spite of the 
most solemn compacts, should be devoted to political destruc- 
tion. And this concurrence of circumstances depended, as we 
have since seen, only on a fitting occasion offering itself, after 
the oppressed had been goaded into rebellion, and after the 
worm had been trampled upon till even the worm turned upon 
its tormentors in the madness of despair. Do you ask how I 
know all this ? It is by means of a gentleman once high in 
the confidence of the Russian Emperor, and now in Paris, as 
well as through another who himself was the digester of the 
infamous contract — a contract communicated directly to 
Louis Philippe, but by him dishonestly concealed from his 
ministry. For you must know that he is his own foreign sec- 
retary, and holds, most unconstitutionally, a correspondence, 
apart from the ministerial one, with his representatives at 
different courts. Do you wonder why his king-craftiness, 
which every coffee-house frequenter talks of, is not brought 
home to him with overwhelming proofs ? It is because he is 
too astute to leave any traces in his dark paths that can be 
sworn to ; and because, greedy as he is of gold, he is lavish- 
ness itself whenever written documents, which might come to 
light in condemnation of him, are to be had for money. 

Here is an instance of his extreme caution. In 1840, 
when the affairs of the East wore so portentous an aspect that 
an English gentleman of almost the highest diplomatic rank, 
on the authority of one of the French Ministry, told me that 
" war was inevitable," although messages were incessantly ex- 



172 

changed between the King and his Ambassador in London? 
not one of them was ever committed to paper, but every word 
was communicated verbally through the Count de Montheron. 
Louis Philippe has been called by his parasites the Napo- 
leon of peace ; and certainly, were it not for his paltry cun- 
ning, he might be justly styled the cleverest man in all Eu- 
rope. But let him take heed, lest, lacking art to conceal his 
artifice, like that great and bad ruler, he become his own de- 
stroyer. For here there are, as it were, two nations — 
France superficielle and France reelle ; and it is on the former, 
composed of office-holders, speculators and overgrown bank- 
ers, that his popularity rests ; while from the latter, which 
comprises men of honor, of substance and of true nobility, he 
has nothing to hope. And why should he look for any thing 
at their hands, when he cannot command their respect ? And 
how can he command their respect, or the respect of any one, 
capable as he has shown himself to be of every meanness? 
small and great, of hypocritically embracing at one time, with 
tears in his eyes, the members of a Cabinet anxious to give 
up office, but before his preparations were ready, and then 
chuckling over the dexterous cheat, by which he had cajoled 
them into withdrawing their resignations ; and at another, of 
intriguing against a friendly government on the other side of 
the Atlantic, notwithstanding a voluntary and formal promise 
to remain neutral ? But if we are forced to mourn over the 
degradation of powers such as fall to the lot of few men, and 
if we must grieve that the pages of history are to be devoted 
to a name like his, it is some consolation to reflect that one 
layer at least, which shall envelope it for immortality, will be 
furnished from the records of royal infamy, whereon the ink 
is hardly dry. And yet, perhaps, at the present moment he 
is a blessing to the civilized world, if not to France itself; 
for though he certainly does drag his country through the mire 



173 



every now and then, still he is the advocate of peace, however 
unworthy be his motives, and peace he will have, cost what it 
may. 

Paris, Dec. 7, 1846. 



LETTER III. 

It is hardly possible for a citizen of the " States " fully to 
appreciate the advantages which attach themselves to him as 
an inhabitant of the New World among the denizens of the 
Old, till he has passed some time in foreign countries ; nor, 
until he has dwelt among strangers in a strange land, can he 
properly estimate the blessings which belong to him in his 
own. If in manners and appearance he is unexceptionable, 
and if his letters of introduction have been written by persons 
that had a right to give them, and are addressed to those 
who can present him to the society, however distinguished, in 
which he desires to move, no obstacle opposes itself to the ac- 
complishment of his wishes. Whether he be a manufacturer 
from New England, a merchant from New York, a lawyer 
from Pennsylvania, or a planter from a Southern or a West- 
ern State, saloons, the most difficult of access to one who is 
native-born, are instantly thrown open to him, and even an 
approach to Royalty itself is rendered easy and agreeable. 
That this should happen upon the Continent is not so much 
to be wondered at, when every circumstance is taken into 
consideration; but that in England, aristocratic England, 
where castes are as distinctly marked, and with reason too, 
as in many portions of the East, and where, for the most part, 
each man knows and keeps through life the place allotted to 
him at his birth, — that in such a country a plain American 



174 

gentleman, with suitable credentials and wherewithal to sup- 
port them, can enter at once into the highest society and all 
its enjoyments, to which a mere London merchant, however 
rich and respectable, or a Westminster practitioner, however 
eminent, would never dream of aspiring, seems to me a flat- 
tering privilege accorded to the untitled countrymen of Wash- 
ington, which they should not, as is frequently the case, unduly 
estimate, or sadly misuse. 

Not that I would have them think more meanly of them- 
selves than they ought, (of which, by the by, there is little 
danger,) nor, that they should lower in their own persons by 
obsequiousness and sycophancy the unadorned dignity of every 
well-bred man, who is conscious of right, but that they are 
bound to attribute to their country's form of government, 
which recognises no privilege of birth, and to its institutions, 
which respect the individual, rather than to any personal merit, 
most, if not all, of their success. I am a Republican by 
birth and conviction ; I am too a lover of the people and one 
of them ; it is also my sure belief and daily prayer that some 
years hence that insult to common sense, an absolute sov- 
ereignty, will be unknown in Europe. Nevertheless, I would 
have mankind levelled up rather than down, even in the cour- 
tesies of life, and it grieves me to see imputed to Democracy 
that frequent absence of modesty and regard to the rights of 
others, which, through bravado or sheer obtrusiveness, charac- 
terizes some of our countrymen abroad. 

Then, within the limits of that land so dear to all of us, and 
not less dear to those who are temporary exiles from it, what 
blissful security is felt in place of that unquiet rest, which 
here attends what is called a general state of peace. Look, 
for example, now at the different nations of Europe, and ob- 
serve the rotten condition they are in. See too, what mena- 
cing aspects they assume towards each other, notwithstanding 



175 



treaties, modern and time-worn, stare them in the face, 
and the dearest interests of humanity call upon them to for- 
bear, England and France are in a worse position with 
regard to each other than they were, because of the broken en- 
tenle cordiale, whose reality, except between the two govern- 
ments, never existed. England, like one sick of the palsy, 
feels helpless Ireland hanging at her side, while that wretched 
country, equally incapable of self-regeneration and of receiv- 
ing from others the principles of a new existence, returns upon 
its hereditary tormentor a portion of its many woes. An har- 
vest of dragons' teeth is the daily retribution from a sister-Isle 
to her, who, envied and therefore disliked throughout the Con- 
tinent, has not a single ally on whose fidelity she can rely. 
True, she claims Portugal as an ancient friend, and lately has 
lent her moral aid, if nothing more, to sustain in the person 
of its Sovereign, those very principles which she opposed 
when the outcast, Don Miguel, was their representative ; but 
the friendship is all on one side. France, isolated by her hard- 
hearted and selfish King, struggles for supremacy in Spain 
with a high hand, but her hand, like every other raised in 
that unhappy region, lacks the power of doing or of receiving 
good. Austria, a thing of shreds and patches, to be torn to 
pieces at the first general convulsion, cringing and tyrannizing 
by turns, is an object of hate to all and of love to none. 

The rest of Germany, rumbling with discontent, is slowly 
but surely preparing for a fearful contest between popular 
right and royal might, which must take place, unless regal 
Justice, descending from her high perch, listen to the oppress- 
ed many, ere it be too late to ward off from the protected few 
their well-deserved doom. Parts of Switzerland have long 
been at daggers'-drawing with each other. All Italy is but 
an ill-assorted pack of cards, to be dealt at will by the first 
bold adventurer, whose skill knows neither fear nor dread 



176 



whenever the war-cry of nations is raised. While Russia, 
the incubus of Europe, the feared and the loathed of all, lies, 
like a beast of prey beyond the reach of the huntsman, pre- 
pared for every wile and for every violence. 

It is really heart-sickening for one who loves his fellow 
man, to see creatures, formed after the image of their Maker, 
misgoverned and depressed by kings and ministers, by knaves 
and fools; — to hear the people's abasement pleaded as an ex- 
cuse for sinking them still lower, by defrauding them of every 
chance of self-elevation ; and to know that their rights are 
withheld under the pretext, that perchance the first exercise 
of them may be in the wrong direction. Why, in the country 
where I now am, in France, a kingdom which affects to be 
the foremost in the world, there are but 200,000 electors out 
of thirty-two millions of inhabitants, and a majority of the 
Deputies, miscalled Representatives of the people, are paid 
servants of the crown, hired to do its bidding at all times and 
on all occasions. And the worst of all is, that for this evil 
there seems to be no remedy ; the opponents of the govern- 
ment themselves agreeing with it, that Frenchmen are not 
sufficiently enlightened to choose their own legislators. It 
was only a few days since that I asked a Carlist nobleman, of 
high attainments and great intelligence, why the right of suf- 
frage was not more extended here, and his reply was, " You 
know how I detest Louis Philippe, his ministry and all that 
belongs to them ; and yet in this matter I think that they are 
blameless, for on my conscience I believe my countrymen to 
be wholly unfit for such an experiment." " Then why," was 
my answer, " do you not provide a remedy for the evil by 
gradually creating electors, who will be constrained by pride 
and interest to qualify themselves for the performance of their 
duty, when it is for want of such a remedy that wrongs are 
tolerated, which, if perpetrated in England or in one of the 



177 



United States, would rouse the whole community to arms, un- 
less speedily atoned for or repaired ? " 

It cannot be denied that the affairs of Europe look gloomy 
and threatening, and yet I do not see how war can immediate- 
ly come out of them ; for, to say nothing of the spirit of sub- 
mission which has fallen upon every cabinet save that of 
Russia, the rich capitalists and bankers, who alone can provide 
the means for carrying it on, will be most backward in doing 
so, involved as they are in thousands of commercial specula- 
tions, the results of a long peace. And then, owing to the 
enormous investments lately made in railroads, and to the im- 
mense importation of breadstuffs within the last six months, — 
into France alone two-fold greater than was ever known dur- 
ing an equal period, — specie has become so scarce that, to 
give you one instance of many, there now remains in the Na- 
tional Bank in Paris not one third of two hundred and eighty 
millions, which were a little while ago within its vaults. 

When I think of all these things, and call to mind the 
boundless elements of happiness within our reach at home, I 
cannot help cursing in my heart that passion for legislation, 
which will not leave man alone to work out his own prosperity, 
and that impious defiance of God's eternal law and the good 
man's humble prayer, which has already wasted on Mexican 
ground, and is now, while I write, pouring out like worthless 
water, the heart's blood of many of the best and bravest 
amongst us. 

Paris, Jan. 2, 1847. 



178 



LETTER IV. 

Of two speeches, anxiously looked for by some persons 
and curiously by all, only one has as yet been delivered. 
The King of the French has spoken. The Queen of Eng- 
land has in her turn to speak. His Majesty's, therefore, is 
alone before us, and it requires not a second perusal to con- 
vince any one how " fearfully and wonderfully "' it is made. 
But to its author belongs the fear which its words imply, and 
to its readers the wonderment which, on dangerous occasions, 
words adroitly put together always inspire. Still, Hope is its 
burden from beginning to end. If scarcity, portending fam- 
ine pervade the land, and if an exhausted National Bank, 
menacing thousands with ruin, fill the commercial community 
with alarm, a reliance upon the Chambers seems to sustain 
the Royal speaker, though it cannot disguise his timorous 
anticipations. While protesting against an " infraction of 
treaties," which he must have foreseen would be the inevita- 
ble consequence of " the marriage of his beloved son with his 
beloved niece," he has the hardihood to declare that, " his 
relations with all Foreign Powers afford him the firmest con- 
fidence that the peace of the world is insured." 

With my letter, you will receive a copy of the Diplomatic 
Papers on the Spanish marriages, just laid upon the tables of 
the Chambers by M. Guizot, in which may be seen how easy 
it is to arrive at a disastrous result by pursuing in an unwor- 
thy manner an unworthy end. Stripped of all its trickish 
gloss, the story of the corresponding diplomatists, Lord Pal- 
merston and M. Guizot, is a very plain one. Louis Philippe, 
long ago seeing he could not effect the marriage of his son 
with the Queen of Spain, resolved to content himself with the 
Infanta, her sister, and heir presumptive to her throne ; sooth- 



179 



ing his paternal solicitude with the reflection that a dowry 
would be forthcoming, which a Spanish Princess of the olden 
time might have been proud to oifer. To accomplish his 
object with the consent of England, an all-important con- 
sideration in his eyes, he agreed to wait till Isabella became 
the mother of children, provided that their father were of no 
other than the blood of Philip V. But then, in spite of his 
agreement, and as if in despite of England, he very coolly 
proceeded to carry out his scheme immediately, not because 
England had proved faithless to her engagements, but be- 
cause, forsooth, she had not been as active as he would have 
had her in opposing certain intrigues in favor of a Coburg 
Prince, more nearly related, by the by, to his own family, 
than to that of the British Sovereign. 

You may say, that all this is a very small matter. True ! 
So was the passing of the Rubicon a small matter in itself. 
But the face, of Europe is not the less changed on account of 
it, by the withdrawal of that moral force, however imaginary, 
which stood between the oppressor and the oppressed, so long 
as England and France in outward show remained upon a 
friendly footing with each other. And war, so far from being 
an impossibility, is regarded by many as a highly probable, 
and not very distant, solution of present difficulties. 

Wars, like whirlwinds, are doubtless curses for the time 
being, but a general Avar in Europe at this moment, in the 
same manner as those eccentric commotions in the atmos- 
phere, with much temporary evil, might be productive of 
great permanent good. Let one arise, and Russia's sys- 
tematic encroachments must be met in the first instance by 
Germany. And to do this successfully, resistance must come 
from a contented and united people. But to render the Ger- 
mans either one or the other, concessions must be made to 
them by their rulers, which have long been sought for in 



180 



vain : The King of Prussia, who, it is said, loves too well 
the cup that " cheereth god and man," will be compelled 
to grant the Constitution to his subjects, which for years 
has been promised, and for which they are fully pre- 
pared : The Emperor of Austria, born almost an idiot, will be 
obliged to relax his unholy grasp from provinces which do not 
belong to him : And it is not impossible, however improba- 
ble, that a liberal Confederation may be constructed in Italy, 
which shall forever exclude from that land of perverted 
blessings the contaminating touch of foreign hands. 

Paris, January 15, 1847. 



LETTER V. 

The French have an amiable custom of tutoying their inti- 
mate friends, that is, of making use, in familiar intercourse, 
of the second person in the singular instead of the plural 
number. Their children, too, in sweet and artless simplicity 
do the same. But whenever I hear a sudden theeing and 
thouing commenced by two "robustious periwig-pated fel- 
lows," who till lately have been at swords' points, or at best 
on terms of indifference, the suspicion invariably seizes me 
that before long they will make a visit early in the morning 
to the Bois de Boulogne,* there to refrigerate their untimely 
tenderness by a recurrence to those first principles of force 
which were antecedent to all human law. 

England and France have, during the last few years, pre- 
sented a somewhat parallel case to the one supposed. Bitter 
enemies almost since their recorded histories began, but fast 
friends never, their precocious love, like every unnatural 

* Rendezvous of duellists. 



181 



product, has prematurely perished in the using of it. Yet, 
though the ill-will be not wanting, there is no present appre- 
hension of their proceeding beyond angry words, since, 
between the will and the power, fortunately for the world's 
peace, there is as wide a difference as between a surplus and 
a deficient revenue, or, between a well-fed and a starving 
population. 

A few days subsequently to my last letter, the British 
Queen's speech was pronounced before her assembled Parlia- 
ment. I do not say that it was made by her, because, as you 
are aware, she has no more to do in the construction of it 
than has the throne upon which she sits ; and therefore, I pre- 
sume, one cannot be charged with irreverence if he venture 
to criticise it. Its themes, you will perceive, are the misery 
of her Irish subjects, the Madrid fraud, and the Cracow 
crime. To remedy in some degree the first, the ports are to 
be opened, which, had it been done when Sir Eobert Peel 
proposed it on his individual responsibility, would have saved 
a world of suffering and a mass of human life ; then, the 
navigation-laws are to be suspended, — an excellent measure 
without doubt, but one that nine months ago would have 
brought forth nine-fold more good than it will now ; and 
lastly, a substitute, in certain establishments,* will be allowed 
to replace that enormous portion of man's food which has 
hitherto been turned into poison that destroys him. 

With regard to the second subject of the Eoyal Dis- 
course — the Montpensier marriage, a solemn announcement 
is made, that "a correspondence exists," — a statement which, 
however pertinent, could hardly have taken any one by sur- 
prise, seeing that everybody had had for days an opportunity 
of reading the said correspondence from beginning to end a 

* Distilleries. 



182 



dozen times. Nor would the world have been lost in amaze- 
ment, had it been also told, that this same correspondence 
originated, according to the Speaker's own knowledge, in 
gross prevarication, that it abounded in pitiful, personal alter- 
cation, unworthy to appear in State Papers, and that for 
special pleading it would do no discredit to an Old Bailey 
lawyer. 

Against "the Extinction of the Free State of Cracow" — 
the third matter treated of, it is declared that a " Protest has 
been made," — a thing of far less value than the parchment 
upon which it was engrossed, for who ever heard of a pro- 
test, which is a contemptible avowal of excess of will and 
want of power, six months after its utterance ? 

In thus briefly reviewing the words of Royalty spoken on 
the other side of the channel, as has been already done by 
me in respect to those lately delivered upon this, my object 
is to show your readers that, when considered in relation to 
that much traduced document, an American President's 
Message, they gain nothing by the comparison. 

I am most unwilling to minister to a foolish national 
vanity, but, as partly suggested by what has just been said, 
I will add, what has often occurred to me, that the obloquy, 
so freely cast upon us and ours by strangers, seems to take 
its rise, not in a desire to correct our errors, but in envy of 
our unexampled prosperity, and not in contempt, but in dis- 
trust, of our increasing strength, which is seen to be inde- 
pendent of foreign influences. Let us take heed to ourselves, 
therefore, and ever bear in mind that, if there be mischief in 
store for us, it can be provoked into life, even according to 
such tacit admission of unfriends, only by our own wanton- 
ness or wickedness. 

As England with its eight hundred millions sterling of 
debt, and France with its annual seventy-five millions of 



183 



francs, deficit, know that a war between them is impracticable, 
and that their mutual security depends in a great measure 
upon the united front which can be presented by them to the 
world, they are now engaged in a small game of coquetry, 
and trying by indirect means to solder the slivered entente 
cordiale, to which the ministerial journals on both sides, prop- 
erly instructed of course, lend their hearty, though covert, aid. 
And this endeavor to preserve peace, whatever be the motive 
and whatever the sacrifice of dignity, must gladden the hearts 
of the wise and good ; for there can be no reasonable doubt 
that, even in the actual state of the Christian world, imper- 
fectly civilized and still less christianized as it is, not a single 
interest can be found, whose vindication requires the shedding 
of one drop of human blood. Nevertheless, the citizens of 
the New World have no slight reason for self-gratulation that 
their interests are not wrapt up with those of the Old, for 
never did the affairs of the latter wear a gloomier aspect, ex- 
cept when war, with its insatiate cry, was raging through the 
land. It is no exaggeration, though it may be self-repetition 
on my part, to say that there is not a State on this side of the 
Atlantic which is, either internally or externally, in a safe 
and satisfactory condition at the present moment. Russia, a 
nation of bondsmen ruled with an iron rod, has, like the first 
murderer, her hand against every one and every one's hand 
against her. For even the wretched tools in her late deed3 
of darkness, flimsy Austria and factious Prussia, tremble 
with hate as well as fear before her, because in an hour of 
need, and their turns will come, they can look in no quarter 
for effectual succor, so long as they insanely combat the 
righteous demands of their subjects, whose intense though 
noiseless enthusiasm reminds one of the melted lava at the 
crater's edge, waiting but for the fitting moment to boil over 
with death-dealing fury. England, on the one hand, can 



184 

claim feeble Portugal alone for an ally, which, after the ex- 
haustion of its puny strength in civil broils, will be worse than 
a dead weight on her shoulders; and France, on the other, 
has only a hireling hand-maiden in distracted Spain, that in 
any emergency will prove, as has always been the case, a 
curse instead of a blessing to her. And all this too while the 
people of both countries are daily going from bad to worse* 
morally and physically, as must ever happen, when food-riots 
are the employment of honest men and the pastime of rogues. 

Paris, Feb. 15, 1847. 



LETTER VI. 

Time seems in Europe to be " out of joint." Months fly 
by, and the gloomy reality they leave behind looks bright in 
comparison with the dark prospect which the coming months 
reveal. Every day increases the perplexity of yesterday ; 
every event makes " confusion worse confounded ; " and the 
anxious enquiry on all sides is, when and how this painful un- 
certainty is like to end. 

Since the departure of the last mail to America, a Royal 
decree has been promulgated at Berlin which must power- 
fully and permanently affect, in all their relations, the inhabi- 
tants of Prussia. Thirty-two years ago their King, Freder- 
ick William III., promised them a constitutional representa- 
tion, in recompense for their heroic and successfnl efforts to 
repel the French invasion. This promise, never forgotten, 
though few only of those to whom the pledge was originally 
given are probably now alive to witness its redemption, has 
at length been partially fulfilled by his successor, the reign- 
ing Sovereign. True, the flood-gates of civil rights have not 



185 



been thrown widely open, but an additional sluice, as it wer 
has been raised which can never be shut again ; for the 
Germans are proverbially as tenacious in holding fast to wl.a 
they have secured, as they are patient in waiting for tha 
which has been once guaranteed to them. And if the boo; 
now bestowed is in appearance but a poor apology for a Con 
stitution, still it points the way to better things which are ye 
in store. 

It would be unjust, however, to suppose that this populai 
concession is a solitary leap from absolutism to liberalism : 
for within less than the last half century, such has been the 
progress towards freedom in Prussia, that the legalized voter? 
there more than doubly outnumber those in France. The 
first forward step ever taken was to abolish the local jurisdic- 
tion and prerogatives of the Seigniors, and, by consequence, 
to elevate serfs to the condition of freemen : The second, to 
create municipal corporations, wherein citizens of even mod- 
erate means enjoy the right of suffrage : The third, to pro- 
vide for the maintenance of religion and popular instruction : 
And the fourth, to organize a militia, which, in an hour of 
dire extremity, sent the foreign tyrant vanquished to his 
home, and will not prove less effective, should the unhappy 
occasion offer, against domestic tyranny. But all this in no- 
wise detracts from the high credit due to those Councillors of 
the Crown, who dared, at the present critical moment, to act 
as they have done, in defiance of Russian opposition, Austrian 
remonstrance, and, strange as it may sound, French repug- 
nance. For it was while the three Northern Courts were in 
joint deliberation, at the suggestion of England, upon the 
course to be pursued by them in respect to the Montpensier 
controversy, that the attempt was made by these bold men to 
liberalize still further the institutions of their country whose 
sympathy and aid they openly, though not officially, an- 



186 



nounced could be surely counted upon by their former ally of 
Saxon blood, in any difficulty which might arise out of the 
Spanish marriages. 

But what has been done by Prussia, like every thing else 
now taking place, seems only to complicate still more the ac- 
tual state of affairs ; because, notwithstanding she is alienated 
to a certain extent from her late coadjutors in crime, any 
approximation to the self-styled champion of liberal institu- 
tions upon the Continent of Europe is not thereby rendered 
more easy. And constitutional France herself must, in her 
turn, if she would avoid complete isolation, take an unnatural 
refuge in the -arms of those very enemies to liberty, whose 
outrageous conduct towards Italy, Switzerland and Poland, 
she has been professedly deprecating for years. But it is 
doubtful whether she will be allowed to do even this, for these 
Powers have merely tolerated her revolutionary King, and 
the Sovereign, to whom the Duchess of Montpensier is pre- 
sumptive heiress, has never been recognized by them as the 
rightful occupant of the Spanish throne. And if not admitted 
to the fellowship of overbearing Russia and tyrannic Austria, 
in what direction can she look for support ? If she is in the 
ascendant at Madrid, she is not so in Spain : In Italy she is 
not beloved, — in Turkey she is distrusted, — in Holland she 
is hated and throughout Germany she is feared. 

There is nothing which more strongly marks the troublous 
state of the present times than the raising of troops and mon- 
ey, or the attempt to do so, in every quarter. France has 
just voted between four and five millions of francs to the in- 
crease of her effective force in the interior, and every soldier 
absent on the usual six months' fuidough is ordered to return 
to his post. Anarchical Spain would do as much and more, 
were it not that her law of recruitment, owing to Carlist in- 
fluence, is successfully resisted, and that, while even rickety 



187 



Austria can effect a loan of forty millions of florins, she can- 
not lay her hand upon a single dollar which belongs to her, 
the national revenues having been pledged for years, to repay 
the enormous sums that her worthless rulers have wasted in 
their reckless course of folly and crime. Certain of the 
Swiss Cantons are making military preparations, which are 
so far beyond their means that they must be the work of some 
foreign hand : In Portugal, where the tottering Queen could 
not keep her place a single day but for English support, the 
pillage of banks, in the name of a junta, and forced contribu- 
tions, have superseded, amid civil broils, the necessity of reg- 
ular supplies : And into Poland regiment follows regiment in 
such quick succession that they already number one hundred 
thousand men, in whose presence a groaning population yields 
without submission to the law of the sword? 

But of far more pressing import than either of the facts I 
have mentioned, is the daily increasing scarcity of food 
throughout all Europe. Famine sits by the hearth of the 
million, and laughs at every attempt to dislodge her. In parts 
of Scotland, as well as in Ireland, to such fearful extremities 
are men reduced, that the dead are left for the dying to bury. 
And even in several Departments of France, a country bet- 
ter provided for than most others, the farmer hardly dare carry 
his grain to market for fear of leaving his life there with his 
merchandize ; because the empty hand of the peasant, with 
wife and children looking to it for bread, sets at defiance the 
official sw r ord, which frequently drops from the dead hand of 
him who was compelled to draw it in a loathsome cause. 

And whence comes all this ? Is it from the failure of a 
harvest, or the destruction of a crop ? No ! These may be 
the occasion, but they are not the cause of the evil. The 
cause lies deeper. It lies in the perverse contravention of 
that great law of the Almighty — the base and groundwork 



188 



of the economy of nations as well as of individuals — the first 
free-trade principle ever enunciated, which teaches us to " love 
our neighbor as ourselves and to do unto others as we. would 
have that they should do unto us." In blind and impious 
defiance of this holy precept, nations have refused to receive? 
in fair exchange for their own products, the gifts of nature at 
the hands of strangers ; and, through greediness of gain, 
which they vainly imagined must be in exact proportion to the 
loss of others, they have succeeded in entailing a curse upon 
their several soils. But had the rule of action, which the All- 
wise Lawgiver first promulgated, been duly observed, if only 
since the commencement of the present century, the cry of 
famishing wretches would never have been heard, as it now is, 
in one part of the globe, when theie is food enough and to 
spare in others. Want would have dogged the steps of idle- 
ness alone, and industry would have asked no paid advocate 
to uphold its inalienable right to a fair proportion in the fruits 
of the earth. 

Paris, March 15, 1847. 



LETTER VII. 

There has lately been a national Fast in England, specially 
ordained, in the words of the Royal proclamation, " to avert 
the heavy judgments of the Almighty;" as though that great 
and good Being would punish the poor Irish for the sins of 
their tormentors ; or, as if these last, by a self-inflicted pen- 
ance of twenty-four hours, could expiate the iniquities they 
have been perpetrating towards a dependent country ever 
since the scandalous annexation of it was accomplished. 



189 

Men are ready enough to cry out, " It is the hand of God ! " 
■whenever a calamity, national or individual, befals them ; 
but they are not so hasty to acknowledge a diabolical agency 
when the work of their own hands is evil. So the English 
people, impiously laying at the door of Providence the awful 
accumulation of woe beneath which Ireland is literally writh- 
ing, seem to forget that it is their own misrule, and not 
heaven's wrath, which is depopulating one of heaven's fairest 
regions. They fancy that their consciences are void of of- 
fence towards their starving fellow-subjects, because the failure, 
of a certain crop, to which millions looked for subsistence, 
could not be imputed to them ; but whose fault was it that a 
whole nation's welfare turned upon the healthy state of a sin- 
gle root ? Posterity will regard with contemptuous horror 
the besotted bigotry whi h, till within a few years, robbed the 
Irish Roman Catholic of his dues ; legalizing a deputed tyr- 
anny, the worst sort of oppression, in his land ; and fitting 
him, like the over-driven bullock, to stumble and fall at the 
very first obstacle. 

Yet, how much is there to admire in the English character, 
although till recently the English government has been the 
most arrogant and overbearing on the face of the earth, and 
although Englishmen themselves have shown how practicable 
it is to live and flourish in the enjoyment of an inordinate 
self-esteem, and in sovereign indifference to the opinions of 
others. Napoleon, as is well known, called them a nation of 
shop-keepers ; but, commercial as may be their habits, the 
narrow, peddling spirit which animates the rulers of the peo- 
ple whom he governed, cannot be laid to their charge. After 
recognizing the justice of a claim, the House of Commons 
would have paid, and not have attempted to elude, it, as was 
done in the case of the twenty-five millions of francs, extorted 
from the Chamher of Deputies by General Jackson's rude but 



190 



well directed measures. And in corroboration of my remark, 
observe with what high and politic motives the payment of 
the interest on the Russian-Dutch loan is continued, in compli- 
ance with the spirit, and in defiance of the letter, of the bond. 
May certain defaulting members of a kindred community soon 
follow so brigJit an example, and, without being more generous, 
learn to be more just. 

The present embarrassed condition of France in respect to 
food, is chiefly attributable to the remissness of ministers who, 
although seasonably and repeatedly warned of the coming 
dearth by one of their own officers, the very person on whose 
authority I write, wilfully closed their ears to the threatened 
danger, for fear of exciting a premature alarm, and of thereby 
damaging their prospects at the elections then close at hand. 
Even the government journal now admits that " there has been 
an extreme want of foresight," and the truth of its words is 
confirmed by daily accounts of food-riots in many of the De- 
partments, with all their fatal consequences. Frequent con- 
victions before the tribunals follow of course ; but, paradoxi- 
cal as it may appear, the wonder is, that they are not either 
more or less frequent. For above all piaise, is the virtue 
which can refrain from violence when wife and children are 
crying for bread, and stern must be the heart that can punish 
the miserable peasant whom distress has driven to desperation. 
Much, however, as other parts of the kingdom may suffer, 
Paris is always secure from want, for the good King Louis 
Philippe knows full well that on its contentment hangs the 
fate of his august dynasty. 

Spain is sinking deeper into the mire every day. Her debt 
is nearly equal to the half of England's enormous burden, 
and by giving preference to domestic over foreign creditors 
she has been guilty of as flagrant an act of repudiation as 
was ever committed in America. Her ministers, in contempt 



191 



of justice and decency, have within a few week? driven from 
the Senate a distinguished individual, whose only crime was 
a refusal to assume the command in a distant province, where 
all the world knew that a prison was in readiness for his re- 
ception. And her Queen, disgusted at a first interview with 
an imbecile partner, neither is, nor is like, legitimately to be, 
in a way to prevent the Montpensier issue, now soon expect- 
ed, from mounting the throne. 

Portugal would be without a sovereign tomorrow, were it 
not that England lends a moral, but at the same time a most 
immoral, aid to support a cause which should be left to perish 
in its own infamous weakness. 

But, notwithstanding these and other dark pictures, which 
regard to truth compels one to draw, all things are constantly 
working together for the gradual emancipation of man from 
the rule of hereditary power, and nothing, I am convinced, 
as you may one day be, will more effectually contribute to 
such a happy consummation than the opening of every port in 
Europe and America to manly competition and unshackled 
intercourse. 

Paris, April 1, 1847. 



LETTER VIII. 

I have entered Paris hundreds of times, and in all sorts of 
humors, but, whether sad or cheerful, my sadness has always 
vanished at the Barrier, like a package of contraband goods, 
conscious of no right of entry, and my cheerfulness has al- 
ways changed into the thoughtless gaiety of youth, whenever 
I found myself amid the busy, merry-making crowd, which 
seemed possessed of an eternal vivacity. Yet the other day, 



192 



after a twelvemonth's absence, on returning to this city, whose 
continuous flow of joy, if not of happiness, real or superficial, 
knows no ebb ; within whose walls — and this can be said of 
no other place — life is more than tolerable, nay, often proves 
a blessing, even without the solace of a single friend ; and 
upon whose brilliant boulevards, Elysian Fields and terraced 
gardens, is always met a sovereign remedy for the restless 
heart or the unquiet spirit — I found that either Paris or I had 
undergone a very sensible alteration since we parted. My 
coachman, uninstructed by me, took a direction that led close 
to the spot where nature's beautiful works had been made 
tributaries to the urgent necessities of a patriotic cause, which, 
in the stern destruction of its course, painfully demonstrated 
the odious and selfish blindness of a wilful government, end- 
ing, by necessity, in irreparable mischief, — the spot where once 
waved many an aged tree, for whose grateful shade the high 
or humble pedestrian, upon a summer's day, though less than 
the hard-tasked laborer, released awhile to take his mid-day 
meal and rest, could not feel otherwise than truly thankful. 
The living ornaments of this queenly city, which tedious time 
alone, but not even Parisian art, can replace, were hewn down 
in a single night, leaving the shops they sheltered as bare and 
mean as was poor Gervase Skinner's homely front beneath 
his shaven poll, when at length he was allowed to escape 
from his persecutors, and from the madhouse where they had 
confined him. During a half-hour's drive through the most 
public thoroughfares, and at a fashionable hour, not one hand- 
some equipage, not one smiling face, nor a single attempt at 
pastime was it my fortune to encounter. Now, as Paris with- 
out its sparkling boulevards, its boulevards without their ar- 
borous array, and this round world wanting one of its essential 
elements, were things of which I had not begun to dream, I 
certainly did not, " in my heart of heart," bless King Louis 



193 



Philippe, whom I knew to be the responsible author of the 
graceless metamorphosis which my eyes beheld. 

Some fourteen years ago, no wall, I remember, was sacred 
from the profanation of an attempted resemblance, in manner 
most unseemly, to the Royal Personage who inhabited the 
Tuileries. Since then, however, till the 22d of last February, 
fines and imprisonments, aided by armed sentinels, haA^e super- 
seded the use of the whitewasher's brush. Bnt at the pres- 
ent moment caricatures of falling, fallen and flying majesty, 
are as plenty as the squares in the shop windows ; nor is one 
word of pity heard on any side in behalf of the fugitive Mon- 
arch. Party he had none deserving the name, friends but a 
few, personal adherents not many. Charles X. when he 
abandoned his throne of divine right, went off, at least, like a 
gentleman, as he really was, in his own carriage, and followed 
by a gallant train of devoted cavaliers ; but Louis Philippe, 
who escaped like the wicked man, " flying when no one pur- 
sueth," fell lower than from a throne justly forfeited to those 
that gave it — he fell from his reputation, and found himself in 
a hired cab, a foreign steamer, and in a strange land, whose 
Queen he had deceived, and whose government he had defied. 
The affrighted prince and his family might have departed with 
unsullied personal dignity : Thousands of Frenchmen wera 
at hand to save them from every harm : All were too glad 
to be rid of him and of his. 

Seventeen years since there was not a man in the wide world 
who had, in the multifarious cast of characters, such a grand 
and godlike one to enact as the " King of the Barricades." 
For nearly half a century now Europe has been in the course 
of active change. Individual man has been asserting, and 
not always unsuccessfully, his inalienable, but for long unccd- 
ed, rights, which of course could be done only at the expense 
of sovereigns. Constitutions have been demanded, and con- 



194 

stitutions have been granted ; but rarely till the iron hand of 
the people made itself heard at the gate of the palace. The 
republican principle, rooted and reared in America on being 
transplanted thither, has in its returning fruitfulness so quietly 
and universally pervaded every country here, that to suppose 
an absolute monarch will exist in Europe many years hence, 
is a stretch of fancy far beyond my comprehension England, 
however, the most liberal and democratic power on this side 
of the Atlantic — France I do not take into account for the 
moment, as she is yet but one remove from anarchy — will be 
the last to cut away her monarchic and aristocratic appenda- 
ges, for the obvious reason that Englishmen, having more 
practical good sense than most people, yield reasonably to the 
popular cry, as was the case in Emancipation and Reform, and 
thus will they stave off the day of regeneration till all classes 
are gradually fitted for its enjoyment. WI13' did not Louis 
Philippe act in like manner? He might have been THE 
MAN of his day ; and it was not for lack of perspicacity that 
he was not. For when he came to the throne, he must have 
seen that it was not a mere popular breath which had whistled 
his predecessor down the wind to perch him in his place, but 
a deep drawn inspiration not to be trifled with. He knew 
perfectly well what was the moving cause that carried him 
from his Chateau of Neuilly to the palace of the Tuileries ; 
he knew that the voice of the people — a great, generous and 
daring people — called to him in a tone of deepest distress, to 
lead them forth from the thick darkness which his cousin-kings 
had suffered to accumulate upon their land — to instruct them 
in self-government by judiciously enlarging the right of suf- 
frage, and in economy, by setting them a pure example — to 
rescue, by the spread of education, one-half of their offspring 
from the grossness of ignorance, and, in a word, to tell confid- 
ing millions how best to live for the advancement of their own 
happiness and thereby of their country's glory. 



195 



But in the face of such knowledge what did this transient 
idol of a deluded nation do, and what did he not do ? He 
strove to gag the Press by incarcerating its editors, and by 
robbing them in fines of thousands upon thousands of francs. 
He turned his ministers off if they proved too honest and un- 
pliant, or ruthlessly dismissed them after they had filed their 
hands past cleansing, working at his abominations. He gave 
neither bread, nor the means of earning it, to a willing and 
long-suffering people, but squandered millions of money in 
fortifications cunningly devised to out-thunder the wail of the 
starving. He trenched fearfully upon State revenues, he 
heavily mortgaged his own property, and he unblushingly 
bought majorities in both Chambers. He practically declared 
what Louis XIV. said — " I am the State," and yet, just retri- 
bution ! he too, like the dethroned monarch of old, who gath- 
ered his food with the beasts of the field, learned at last, by 
woful experience, that power abused is power lost ; and that, 
stripped of the phantom gewgaws of royalty, even a king is 
nothing but a " bare forked animal," differing nought, save 
in virtue or in vice, from his fellow-men, whom he has either 
served or betrayed. 

Paris, May 3, 1848. 



LETTER IX. 

The late French Revolution seems to be regarded too gen- 
erally as through a falsely magnifying lens, and by some per- 
sons it is wrongly speculated upon as an isolated fact. Where- 
as it is, in truth, only one of the signs of the times. A phy- 
sician would be ridiculed who mistook a blotch on the face of 
a patient, sick of a fever, for the disease itself. The geologist 



196 



would be scoffed at who taught his disciples that the tempo- 
rary outbreak of a flame on the mountain's side was the be- 
ginning and the end of a volcano, whose crater was visible at 
the top, ready at any moment to belch forth torrents of fire. 
So he who looks upon the last eruption in France as anything 
more or less than a manifest revelation and outpouring of the 
spirit that has long been agitating and regenerating Europe, 
is either stupidly blind or has wilfully shut his eyes against 
the truth. 

The worm will writhe when it is trod upon. Men will cry 
out when they are hurt. All nature is imbued with the spirit 
of resistance against oppression. Is it a wonder then, that 
mankind, after being ridden over for centuries, has in these 
latter days turned thought and word into action, and, like a 
mettlesome horse, his full strength attained, has, in contempt 
of imbecile, timorous and dishonest masters, become restive 
under whip and spur? 

Looking no further back than can a man of middle age, 
compare the state in which Europe was forty or fifty years 
ago, marking its gradations to its present condition, and 
say if the revolutionary spirit, now palpably embodied, is a 
thing of yesterday. Take England for an example, and, 
recollecting what she once was, and what has been her on- 
ward democratic march, think on what she is. She was a 
hot-bed of sinecures, aristocratic pretensions, monopolies 
and kindred impositions ; her people were not more fairly 
represented than the French under Louis Philippe ; boroughs, 
rightly christened rotten, were bought and sold as openly as 
cattle in the market. Parliamentary influence and church 
patronage were acknowledged articles of traffic, and princely 
fortunes were often swamped or wrecked past redemption by 
systematic bribery of the worst possible description. Then too 
that in this iniquitous whole no part might be wanting in con- 



197 



formity, a considerable portion of the community, who saw fit 
to worship their Maker otherwise than according to the canons 
of the established Church, were under an infamous ban of in- 
capacity. But at length the spirit of man was stirred, and 
the voice of a multitude, that no one could number, was heard 
pronouncing the words, Emancipation ! Reform ! The pro- 
tected Few made a stand once and again, like that of the 
grim monster himself, against the unprotected Many, but it 
was of no avail. In one instance the monarch yielded, though 
only when told by his ministry, while surrendering their trusts, 
that his sole alternatives were " Concession or Hanover ; " 
and in the other the nobles bowed in acquiescence, but not 
until assured beyond question that their House was in dan- 
ger of falling upon their own heads. 

England, then, has for a long time been in the course of 
bloodless revolution, not yet finished. Abuses have shrunk, 
though not disappeared, under the touch of a reformed Par- 
liament. Roman Catholic, and Dissenter, and soon, too, 
will the Jew, exercise the rights and enjoy the privileges 
which pertain to society ; and everybody is at liberty to pur- 
chase what he wants in the cheapest market he can find. 
Such was and such is England. But other Powers of Eu- 
rope, either wanting the sense to see, or the wisdom to ac- 
knowledge, the gigantic spirit of the age, through obtuseness 
or folly, refused to go with the times, and have consequently 
been carried away by them. Now and then, it is true, grudg- 
ing concessions are made, but rarely, if ever, before the " toe 
of the peasant galled the kibe of the noble," and never, even 
then, did the inutility of half measures fail to appear. The 
consequence of all which is, that the advocates of regal do- 
minion and those of self-government, are in general array 
against each other, and have more than once lately brought 
their difference in opinion to bloody conclusions. All the 



198 



world is aware that such has eminently heen the case in the 
country and on the spot where I now write, and the keenest 
capacities are sorely taxed to form even a plausible opinion 
upon the term which affairs are most likely next to take, 
though a legitimate republic and healthful liberty, as immedi- 
ate results, are beyond hope. 

I was delighted at the Revolution of February, because 
France under the late dynasty was far on the high road to 
bankruptcy and complete demoralization, so that her " last 
state " cannot possibly be " worse than her first." Still, I am 
by no means so sanguine as some persons profess to be in the 
success of the present experiment, for, in the first place, a 
Frenchman's idea of a republic, according to our notions, is 
not only vague but almost negative, the utmost stretch of his 
fancy reaching no further than to an absence of royalty and 
to universal fraternization, which is a phrase beyond the com- 
prehension of practical men. Then, it is almost certain that 
there will be but one Chamber, which, unless things have 
changed their names, will constitute what is called an oligar- 
chy. Moreover, the first step taken by the sovereign people, 
though a good step, has been badly taken. Mirabeau truly 
said that an assembly of more than one hundred men is a 
mob. What then can reasonably be hoped or expected in the 
way of constitution manufacturing from a mob of nine hun- 
dred men, more than one half of whom are provincial phy- 
sicians or lawyers, skilled, it may be in the human constitu- 
tion, or in the constitutions of courts, and the rest a miscel- 
laneous collection of gentlemen, who, in the few coming 
months, through sheer ignorance of state affairs, will proba- 
bly do more mischief than they ever did good in so many 
years of their existence ? The opening days of the National 
Assembly would have done discredit to the early meetings 
of a college spouting club, and though M. de Lamartine has 



199 



made a brilliant display of eloquence, the wretched condition 
of France, French finances, and above all of Parisian opera- 
tives, is no more relieved by it than the horrors of burning 
Rome were by Nero's exquisite fiddling. 

Paris, May 11, 1848. 



LETTER X. 

Tn a letter signed a " States'-man," published in the Lon- 
don Times of the 10th inst., I spoke of the likelihood of the 
Representatives in the French National Assembly being 
driven out, some time or other, from their Chamber by the 
hand of violence ; and five days later, that is, on the loth, my 
prediction was accomplished. It is not my intention to trou- 
ble you with details of that day's history, all of which will be 
found in public journals or private letters, carried out by the 
next steamer, but in this short note I would take a cursory 
view of things and persons as they have been and now are. 

Immediately after the famous 16th of April, when the Pro- 
visional Goverment was surprised and besieged in the Hotel 
de Yille by a rabble of twenty thousand men, M. de Lamar- 
tine, the foremast man of the day was guilty, it is thought, of 
a grave political error. When found by General Changarnier 
on that occasion he was very pale and evidently dishcatened, 
though of a courageous nature. " Why do you not call out 
the National Guard," said the General, "and defend your- 
selves, instead of suffering these ruffians to coop you up 
here ? " 

" Apply to M. Ledru Rollin, for it is his business," replied 
the Minister of Foreign Affairs. 



200 

M. Rollin, who was one of those at whose instigation the 
insurrectionary movement had been got up, though he has since 
seen fit to change his tactics, gave the required order for beating 
the rappel, but not until he had been badgered into doing so 
by the rough arguments of the unceremonious soldier. The 
consequence of which was, that the National Guard turned 
out in great force, and danger for the time was averted. Then, 
at a moment so propitious for exposing delusion and unmask- 
ing treason, if he on whom all eyes were fixed in hope, and 
who almost alone was above suspicion, if he had stood boldly 
forth the champion of a practicable Republic, untrammelled 
by the idle fancies of the socialist and the optimist, and if he 
had proved himself the unscrupulous contemner of ultra de- 
mocracy, brutal clubism and Utopian communism ; if he had 
denounced as dangerous the authors of these phantasmas, in- 
stead of timorously hugging them to his heart and refusing to 
abandon them ; if, in short, he had been true to the occasion 
and to himself, the pitiful and disgraceful scenes which last 
Monday witnessed would never have occurred. 

And, indeed, pitiful and disgraceful they truly were, for 
what could be more so than the sight of a faithful citizen- 
guard betrayed by its leader, a self-styled republican, of noble 
family and of ignoble heart* — an august Assembly — the choice 
of thirty-two millions of freemen — rudely hustled from their 
hall by the excited dregs of the populace — the President ig- 
nominiously expelled, and the peace of society on the point 
of perishing in civil broil? But in justice I should say, in 
passing, that this is only one side of the picture. The other 
is honorable in the highest degree to French character, nay 
even glorious in its beauty. France was without even a nom- 
inal government. It had vanished. Traitors were at the 

*General Courtois. 



201 

Hotel de Ville. They called themselves supreme. And truly 
for a while the balance quivered between rule and misrule, 
between peace and war. Then it was that the generate 
echoed through the streets of Paris — more than a hundred 
thousand citizen-soldiers, completely armed, rushed to the 
rescue — the Chamber of the Assembly was cleared, and its 
members were re-conducted to their places — the legitimate 
Executive was re-constituted — the rebel chiefs — some of them 
the very culprits Lamartine had cherished — were cast into 
prison, and men once more breathed freely. All this was the 
work of three short hours, and in this little space were taken 
and retaken, by main force, two of the most important build- 
ings in the city, and that too, wonderful to relate, without the 
loss of a -single life ! A parallel case I do not remember in 
history. 

M. de Lamartine's most unpardonable and unstatesman-like 
offence, if not crime, was committed in the earliest days of the 
National Assembly. With his overwhelming majority of 
votes, and his admitted preeminence, it was the almost univer- 
sal hope that he would place himself at the head of the mod- 
erate party — itself stronger by far than all other's together, 
and thus secure the tranquillity, peace and order so all essen- 
tial to France, and so ready a means of making her the richest 
and happiest nation of Europe. But what did he do ? Too 
tender of his newly-fledged popularity, he weakly joined in 
the false cry, " There are no parties ! " — as though parties and 
politics were not inseparable ; and to his timid, or at least, 
mistaken course, in refusing bravely to lead whither the 
good were eager to follow, is to be imputed a large portion 
of the trouble which has since ensued, and more than on* 
black shade in the dark futurity which mocks the eye of man. 

The truth is, that the present Executive of France is a 
mosaic, incongruous and therefore inefficient, — its Assembly 
9 



202 



an unwieldy machine, and what is worse, if worse can be, its 
Treasury a nearly empty coffer, which a few months may 
drain to its last sou. Then, commerce of every sort being all 
but stopped, how are the extraordinary expenses to be met ? 
such as, for example, about one hundred thousand francs a 
day to workmen who are too idle or unskilful to earn a living; 
twenty-two thousand five hundred to Representatives who do 
nothing but wrangle, save when by their carelessness in ap- 
pointing officers of high trust, or stupidity in issuing orders, 
they suffer themselves to be thrust into the street ; and about 
the same amount to some sixteen hundred of the gamins of 
Paris, who for the safety of the state must be kept out of 
mischief, and allowed to play soldier, at the expense of the 
honest bourgeoisie, who think themselves quite equal in their 
military capacity to the preservation of order, if, indeed, order 
can be preserved by any body. 

Every one is asking, but no one can tell, how the Govern- 
ment is going to raise money. If it is to be by taxing the 
capitalists, or men of independent fortunes, their property, in- 
vested for the most part in public funds of some sort or other, 
and in railways, has diminished one-half in value, and pays, 
when it does pay, in paper, which a few months hence may 
possibly be only a remove or two above the ancient assignats 
in point of respectability. If owners of lands are to be 
squeezed, very many of them have already mortgaged their 
estates, and, if these hard times continue, they, together with 
all they possess, will soon be past redemption. If the mort- 
gagees are to suffer, they have long ago dispossessed them- 
selves of their cash to the mortgagers. And if barkers are 
to be fleeced, they hold nothing but protested bills, and, for the 
time being, valueless notes of hand. What, then, is to be 
done in order that this land, absolutely teeming with blessings, 
6hall be saved from the evil which improvidence, extrava^ 



203 



gance and rapacity have been heaping up against her? M. 
de Lamartine, with his surpassing eloquence, will perhaps an- 
swer the question, always provided he make no third blunder, 
but I am persuaded nobody else can. 

Paris, May 25, 1S48. 



LETTER XI. 

On Monday, May 22d, the United States' Minister, resi- 
dent at Paris, presented to the members of the Executive 
Government an address, " tendering, in the name and be- 
half of the American people, the congratulations of Con- 
gress to the people of France upon the success of their re- 
cent efforts to consolidate the principles of liberty in a repub- 
lican form of government." 

The measure was well-intended doubtless, it was harmless 
too, but at the same time it was amusing in the highest de- 
gree ; for it reminded one of a certain homely saying, the 
purport of which is, the folly of untimeously counting the 
progeny of the feathery tenants of a barn-yard before incu- 
bation has done its perfect work. The Americans themselves 
are too shrewd by far to cry out before they are well clear of 
the wood, but, it would seem, that they are not so very 
unwilling to instigate others to such inopportune self-glorifica- 
tion. That like encouragement was needed here, however, 
no one will believe who witnessed last Sunday's fete, the 
object of which, whether real or pretended, as yet remains 
in complete obscurity. Some persons say it was made in 
honor of the nine hundred Representatives ; some say that it 
was to do reverence to the Republic in its swaddling clothes; 
and others that between two and three hundred thousand 



204 



dollars were wasted for the sake of rejoicing the hearts of 
the Parisians, — as though rejoicing were becoming in a city 
where one hundred and fifteen thousand of its inhabitants are 
registered paupers, and all the rest are, without exaggeration, 
if things do not change for the better, on the high road to 
ruin. 

You can hardly be aware of the deep and general distress 
which has fallen on this people. Most persons of fortune 
had invested great portions of their wealth in the Rentes, or 
National Securities, and railways guaranteed by government; 
many of them were owners of real estate ; while everybody, 
if the proud title of proprietaire were not to be aspired to, 
was too happy to see his or her name inscribed, even for a 
small amount, upon the Grand Livrc, or enrolled among the 
universal carriers who had superseded the owners of mail- 
coaches and diligences. But at present railways pay noth- 
ing, houses are equally unprofitable, and in less than six 
months, it is universally believed and said, that public secu- 
rities -will be in no better plight. Men who had invested 
large capitals in extensive manufactories, have been obliged 
to discharge most of their workmen, and they, as well as the 
smaller dealers, whenever you enter their halls of sale, 
almost beg you to purchase their merchandise at your own 
price. A wholesale manufacturer of gilt bronzes, for exam- 
ple, whom 1 have known for years to be a liberal, careful 
and honest trader, told me a day or two since that he had 
been obliged to discharge five hundred workmen, that he had 
lost an immense sum of money at his banker's, where he 
was obliged to keep it for daily purposes, that he would be 
forced to work with his own hands, and that, in a word, he 
was ruined. 

In all fevers, whether political or otherwise, as there is a 
beginning: so must there be a duration and an end. But the 



205 

duration and ^the end, it is needless to say, greatly depend 
upon the treatment to which the patient is subjected. 

If one powerful and skilful hand be made responsible for 
the issue, all may go well; but if a multiplicity of coun- 
cillors be relied on, there may be safety, but not to the 
unhappy sufferer. Now, it so happens that France has many 
among her children who are faithful, and able to handle her 
tenderly and judiciously in her present sad extremity ; but 
the heartless quacks, who revel in her distemper for their 
own base purposes, are fool-hardy and unscrupulous, crying 
in the ears of the moderate and timid party — an immense 
majority, by the by, — that there is danger of " reaction," by 
which means the arm of the strong and good is robbed of 
half its strength. The National Assembly is like the deck 
of a man-of-war going into action with a double complement 
of men — each man in his neighbor's way. The five mem- 
bers of the Executive Government do not work well together. 
Lamartine, who, if it had been in him, might have become 
the Washington of his country, loses, by the actions of those 
connected with him and his own inaction, more popularity 
in twenty-four hours, than even his surpassing eloquence 
can restore in as many days. Ledru Rollin, his stumbling- 
block and millstone, is, to use no stronger term, held in 
general dis-esteem ; and as for their three colleagues, all to be 
said of them is, that they need only the gripe of a deter- 
mined and powerful master on their shoulders to make them 
do good service to their country. 

Absence of royalty is here called a Republic ; but what 
are names if realities are wanting ? One great essential in 
republicanism is, not to interfere with private rights, but to 
leave every man to manage his concerns according to his own 
will, as long as he encroach not on the legal privileges of 
others. But what sort of a Republic is that which gulps, as is 



206 



now threatened, a dozen railways at once — private property, 
all of them, in a certain sense — and pays, as the price of its 
gormandizing, in a depreciated currency, which, being thus 
inordinately swelled in bulk and thrown suddenly into the 
market, must necessarily suffer a still greater depreciation. 

A general European war is not thought to be near, but 
European peace is still further off. Unity is wanting in 
Italy ; weakness and distraction reign in Austria ; rank trea- 
son slaps England in the face ; Poland, according to M. de 
Lamartine, is no better off in regard to her sympathisers than 
was the rich man in hell when told that there was an impassa- 
ble gulph between him and those who might have cooled his 
parched tongue ; Russia is biding her time ; and all Ger- 
many is a hodge-podge. Certainly, if there be " a special 
providence in the fall of a sparrow," never was there a more 
auspicious moment for bettering man's condition, in so far as 
the characters of reigning princes bear upon it. The Em- 
peror of Russia looks on from afar and smiles ; the King of 
Prussia hugs the wine cup too closely ; the Emperor of Aus- 
tria is the reverse of wise ; the King of Naples is grossness 
itself; the Queen of Spain is — is — a woman, and therefore 
of her I will say no more than that both she and her royal 
cousin of Portugal are curses instead of blessings to their 
afflicted countries. But still I doubt not that the spirit of 
true liberty, now at last awake, will in its own good time 
extract from this incongruous medley of ingredients a feast 
of good things which will rejoice the heart and gladden the 
eyes of every man who loves his fellow-man as he ought. 

Paris, May 25, 1848. 



207 



LETTER XII. 

Dui-ing the last week there has been a comparative calm 
here, an unwholesome calm, not the tranquility of health. 
National Guards, and troops of the line have been called out, 
but a mere display of force was sufficient to overcome the 
turbulent workmen who threatened the peace of the city, not 
without some show of reason on their side. 

When the first Revolution took place in France, the peo- 
ple had something to fight for and against. They had the 
common rights of humanity to recover, and a grinding nobility 
to crush. When the revolution of 1830, exchanged a sover- 
eign Log for a sovereign Stork, they had still something worth 
striking a blow for, which was to rid themselves of a pre- 
posterous fiction, that of king-ship by divine right. But when 
the Revolution of 1848, in its success, surprised its inventors 
as much as its victims, they had no one great political object 
in view, after having un-made the work of royalty which their 
own hands had fashioned. They had tried their skill at 
king-making, and the attempt was a failure ; not knowing, 
therefore, which way to turn, and imagining that a republic 
consisted simply in an absence of monarchy, they shouted vive 
la Republique ! Hitherto they had fought and bled and got 
nothing for their pains, save a bourgeoisie that looked down 
on them, while they themselves, thanks to Louis Philippe's 
selfish and cruel policy, were left by thousands without em- 
ployment, and consequently without bread. It behoved then 
the men whom the 24th of February put in power, to take 
some immediate and effectual steps for supplying the wants 
of these sufferers, who were willing to work, but were by 
necessity idle. National workshops were consequently estab- 
lished, and it was weakly imagined that a remedy for an 



208 



evil, which all acknowledged, was thus provided ; whereas 
the remedy has proved, by its injudicious application, worse, 
if anything, than the disease itself. A young and inexpe- 
rienced man was placed at the head of these shops, one 
Emile Thomas, who has within a few days been spirited 
away to Bordeaux, in the care of two police agents, by order 
of government, which, rather than do openly and boldly 
what it conceived to be right, was willing to expose its own 
weakness, at the same time that it grossly violated private 
rights. This person had been guilty of disobedience, and he 
or those about him had permitted abuses in the administra- 
tion entrusted to their hands, which you will see set forth in 
the speech of the Minister himself during last Saturday's 
debate in the Assembly. Instead of encouraging good work- 
men to remain with good masters, and giving useful employ- 
ment to able laborers ; instead of selecting the most worthy 
among the indigent, and sending the lazy and dissolute away ; 
thirty sous a day were offered to every vagabond in France. 
Whereupon, paupers, within and without Paris, hastened to 
claim the reward of idleness, for no useful work was done in 
these resorts — offenders against the laws, convicted and 
unconvicted, came in for their shares — cheats, under dif- 
ferent names, received the charity, over and over again in the 
course of the same twenty-four hours, and, in a word, every 
worthless fellow, who had had a falling out with work, rushed 
to the plunder of the State ; so that the number to be sup- 
ported by the public for doing nothing having swelled to 
one hundred and fifteen thousand, the cost to the country 
since the 1st of March, has been about a million of francs a 
month! It was thought proper to effect a reform in this 
socialist experiment, and, an emeate being feared, the military, 
as I have said, were paraded in great force. 

The owners of many of the principal railways have pub- 



209 



lished most powerful and conclusive remonstrances against 
the contemplated appropriation of their property by the State- 
On the other hand, the arguments advanced by Ministers in 
favor of their infamous project are paltry and discreditable. 
But one consideration, which, it is feared, will outweigh in 
the minds of the latter a thousand remonstrances, is that the 
perpetration of their proposed folly will " put money in their 
pockets," to obtain which they are even now almost at their 
wits' end. In the month of June, it is thought, that the 
dividends on public securities, amounting to thirty millions 
of francs, will be punctually paid, as the bank has promised 
to provide the necessary funds, but I have met with no man 
who is bold enough to believe that the one hundred and fifty 
millions due in September will be forthcoming, unless the 
men at present in power be displaced for their betters, and 
things take a more favorable turn. 

The Committee on the Constitution, it is said, will in about 
a fortnight have finished their work, which the National 
Assembly will then take into its consideration. And when I 
tell you that there is to be but one Chamber and a sort of 
Council, which will have all the vices and none of the virtues 
of a Senate, you must fear with me that the present attempt 
at a popular government is in great danger of being a great 
failure. 

Paris, June 1, 1848. 



210 



LETTER XIII. 

Montesquieu somewhere says, " that a republic, which has 
always a tendency to produce many men of mediocrity, if its 
administrators are fortunate, will be happily administered, 
and wisely, if they are wise." -Here, however, at the present 
moment, although mediocrity abounds, men distinguished 
either for their good fortune or their wisdom, have not, as 
yet, shown themselves ; but, on the contrary, distraction in 
council and weakness in execution, are the attributes of those 
who rule over the land. 

I have before mentioned the violation of individual liberty 
in the person of a man named Thomas, whom the Govern- 
ment, not daring to arrest on account of his popularity among 
the workmen of Paris, sent in vile durance to Bordeaux, 
under the pretext that his services were required there in a 
mission which, on its being offered to him, he scornfully 
rejected. Since that high-handed measure, which was the 
effect of weakness and fear, another and more striking exam- 
ple of timidity and want of strength has been exhibited in 
the National Assembly, both by it and by the Executive 
powers. 

The Procureur General and the Procureur of the Re- 
public, the first law officers under the Minister of Justice, 
demanded that Louis Blanc, formerly a member of the Pro- 
visional Government, and now one of the Representatives of 
the people, should be delivered over to take his trial among 
those indicted for the famous attack of the 15th of May. 
The Ministers consented that leave to prosecute the supposed 
traitor, or, at least, accomplice of traitors, should be asked of 
the Assembly, and then coolly and treacherously left their 
employes, in the lurch, when the time had come for voting. 



211 



The Assembly, too, did not behave itself less shamefully, for, 
after having twice decided, by a majority of nine to seven, 
in favor of the proposition in the usual manner, that is, by 
rising and sitting, when called upon to vote by ballot, it 
shrunk from its convictions, and gave a majority in the nega- 
tive. The consequence of which was, that the two Procurcurs 
threw up their commissions in disgust, the Minister of Jus- 
tice, who had played a pitiful part, according to the testimony 
of these gentlemen, was obliged to resign, and the Adminis- 
tration itself came within an ace of being dissolved. 

M. de Circourt, a gentlemen well known in America, upon 
Avhose institutions he has written often and well, — a person, 
too, of distinguished merit, both in politics and literature, — 
was lately appointed Minister to Washington, but because of 
a cabal got up against him, the government was frightened 
into ottering him the gross insult of putting another man 
in his place. 

The mischievousness too of the powers that be, keeps pace 
with their feebleness, for the project of robbing the proprie- 
tors of railways, or " appropriating," as it is called, their 
property to the State, is still entertained. Indeed, a consid- 
erable majority, in an Assembly of more than eight hundred, 
lately gave priority of discussion to this outrageous measure 
over another of real importance, whose object was to con- 
solidate the floating debt of treasury bonds and the funds 
of the savings banks. 

Still there are persons who believe, or affect to believe, 
that all things are working well, but rest assured of one fact, 
that until those now in power are changed for better men, 
there can be no reasonable expectation of any improvement 
in France. 

Paris, June 8, 1848. 



212 



LETTER XIY. 

By means of your regular correspondents and the public 
journals, you will receive, at the same time with this note, 
details of four days' civil war, waged within the French capi- 
tal since the departure of the mail from this place for the 
steamer of the 24th ; and, if they take you less by surprise 
than did those of the three days' struggle in February, they 
will, I am persuaded, excite you to increased wonder, not 
unmixed with horror and disgust. You will read, perhaps 
without believing, accounts of Frenchmen in the middle of 
the nineteenth century, butchering Frenchmen by thousands — 
of their shooting, hanging, beating to death, and even muti- 
lating, while yet alive, prisoners and bearers of flags of truce. 
You may, I say, read all this without credence, and yet your 
incredulity will be misplaced. 

The impressions made upon my mind by the scenes and 
actors in the false and fantastic drama which this country has 
lately presented, have, as you well know, been, in certain 
respects, of the most gloomy cast. 

When the curtain fell on Louis Philippe and his few fol- 
lowers, they all evanished like a phantom troop. It rose, 
and the Provisional Government appeared. This improvised 
piece of patchwork told the authors of its high estate — its 
creators — the dregs of an immoral and infested city — how 
good, and great, and virtuous, and glorious they were. It 
fawned upon and flattered a brute body which it feared. It 
proffered unearned bread to the needy, whether they were 
so by their own faults or otherwise — mock labor to the un- 
employed, and a support to everybody. It promised more than 
even its almost unbounded power could execute, and executed 
less than even the commonest honesty would have promised. 



213 



But the hour of its dissolution arrived, when the National 
Assembly — a multitudinous and incongruous collection of 
unschooled polemics, unskilled politicians, and uninstructed 
statesmen — came dragging into existence with its nine hun- 
dred members, puifed up with impossible or impracticable 
conceits. True, there were not wanting to this assemblage 
many good men, wise and brave, such as have never failed 
France in her hour of need ; but what was its first grand 
achievement? An Executive abortion — an epitomised edi- 
tion of the Provisional Government — whose childish vaunt 
has been — " Lo, the wondrous and bloodless works of our 
hands ! The evil day is, thanks to us, yet afar off ! Have 
patient trust in our strength, and .still greater things shall ye 
see." But procrastination is not prevention. This shrunken 
Executive abstract of its Provisional prototype, after having, 
either in stubborn obtuseness or fiendish malice, laid, or tried 
to lay, its profane hands on all the material interests which 
society holds sacred, rashly gave to the sworn foes of order, 
an opportunity to do their devilish work, such as even in their 
most sanguine moods these enemies of the public peace could 
have hardly dared to hope. It attempted to disband at a 
single stroke the National workshops — those monstrous mon- 
uments of its own folly, which harbored more than a hun- 
dred thousand of violent men, the victims of their own or 
others' crimes, — impoverished laborers, lazy vagabonds* 
liberated galley slaves, — and by so doing it has raised the 
very stones of the street up against it in judgment ; it has 
changed them into one red hue with fratricidal blood; it has 
converted Paris into an armed camp and a house of mourn- 
ing ; and all France it has covered with shame. 
Paris, June 29, 1848. 



214 



LETTER XV. 

The gigantic movement which has been lately witnessed in 
Europe, cannot but ameliorate the general condition of man, 
whatever be the amount of individual suffering that may grow 
out of it. A great and radical change was needed, and, to 
what extent, a very slight glance, by way of review, Avill 
show. 

The Germans, who are a patient, quiet, and, to a certain 
extent, docile people, however enthusiastic when deeply 
moved, have been for years almost bursting with discontent. 
From time to time a political sop has been thrown to them as 
we throw a bone to a dog when we dare no longer withhold 
it for fear of his sharp teeth ; but though drop by drop will at 
last fill a bucket, there is such a thing as letting the moment 
go by beyond which the operation of filling up becomes im- 
practicable. And thus has it happened in Germany. 

Part of Northern Italy was under the dominion of Austria, 
but when was ever a step-mother's rule, and much less that of 
a self-constituted and self-interested guardian, an adequate 
substitute for the protection which nature and natural instincts 
require ? Another portion of it was under kingly authority, 
and what that meant, according to the ancient order of things, 
no one need be told. Further to the south, the ill or well-be- 
ing of the population depended rather on the individual char- 
acter of a sovereign, aud the caprice of a man, than on the 
guarantee which constitution and laws afford. Tuscany was 
ruled over by a kind-hearted prince, and therefore was not 
unblest, but, on the other hand Lucca and one or two other 
little principalities were theoretically, if not practically, under 
a sway as despotic as that of Russia, and their Governors, like 
the Centurion of old, could say to this man, go ! and he went> 



215 



and to another, come ! and he came, and no one was bold 
enough to gainsay their authority. 

Rome, till the pontificate of Pius IX., was ever a scene of 
misrule, and Naples had never ceased to be a hot-bed of 
abuses. 

Who, then, shall dare to say that a general regeneration, a 
thorough cleansing, was not demanded from one end of the 
Continent to the other ; and who will venture to assert, even 
in the face of all the crimes which have been perpetrated 
within the last six months, that men would not have been 
guilty of a yet greater enormity, if they had still sat tran- 
quilly enduring the blasting influence of a curse that grew by 
what it fed on ? 

The amount of material misery inflicted on the world by Na- 
poleon, no one can calculate. For, passing by the official re- 
turns of killed and wounded and missing in his numerous cam- 
paigns, and the names of many places on the maps of Europe 
and of the East, which have been immortalized, directly or in- 
directly through his agency, by scenes of fire and carnage, lust 
and plunder,who can tell how many villages, once happy in their 
insignificance, were turned into barren spots by the flaming 
ploughshare of war, and how many thousands of peasants, 
once rejoicing in plenty and domestic peace, were chased forth 
houseless and hopeless, to die piecemeal, after having seen 
their wives and daughters perish beneath the licentiousness of 
a ribald soldiery ? And yet Napoleon sent the world at least 
one hundred years ahead of what it was before he came. 
Before it knew him, its eyes were not half open. It regarded 
kings as gods till it saw them bowing in humble reverence at 
the nod of a ci-devant lieutenant of artillery, and the royal 
purple as a divine inheritance, till it saw how easily an 
Empei'or of self-creation could shift its gaudy folds from 
shoulder to shoulder, or trample ' them under his own boot- 



216 

heel. The good which Napoleon did to the world lives after 
him, and is now bearing fruit, while the evil, of which he 
was the author, is overgrown or forgotten. 

And so it will be with the present anarchy which pervades 
men's ideas in Europe — even more, perhaps, than their out- 
ward show would indicate, much as that may be. Europe is 
older by years that it was a few months since. Nations, like 
individuals, are old or young, according as they are more or 
less mature of thought. The United States, though a thing 
of yesterday in the world's history, are centuries in advance 
of time-Avorn communities, by whom they are regarded as 
but little better than a congregation of barbarians. In some 
respects, it is true, we lack refinement to a great degree — a 
certain sort of refinement, that is, which the present constitu- 
tion of our society forbids ; but on the score of civilization, 
whenever I hear the want of that brought up against us by 
strangers, my invariable and unanswerable answer is, "Are 
we not capable of self-government, that surest test of civiliza- 
tion, and where is the people that can compare with us in 
this ? " 

No system, be it natural or artificial, can exist forever in a 
state of ferment and fever. Affairs in Europe will before 
long become more calm. A great but unreal calm will suc- 
ceed. Men tire of continual agitation. A truce is sometimes 
welcome even to the conqueror. But the calm will not endure. 
The stone of reform which had been rolling tediously along 
till the beginning of the present year, — to be then flung 
hither and thither, overturning and destroying, — may, and 
probably will, be again retarded in its course ; but never can 
it be fully stopped, unless the nature of man changes, till the 
European, like the American, has assured himself of each 
several right of which his fathers were robbed before they 
knew its value or were able to defend it. 

Paris, August 10. 1848. 



217 



LETTER XVI. 

Believing, as I do, that an absence of hereditary royalty 
and nobility is a blessing to man's estate, wherever mankind 
is sufficiently enlightened and civilized to dispense with such 
costly and senseless gewgaws, I cannot look but with a kindly 
eye on all those who are struggling to rid themselves of that 
monstrous figment, birth-excelience, which, like the feudal 
system, having served its turn, must ere long take its place 
among other antiquated instances of a by-gone time, to be the 
historian's study, or the romancers amusement, according as 
their several fancies shall dictate. 

It is now about sixty years since the struggle commenced 
in this country, and France even yet is in a state of transi- 
tion. Wholly unsuited as is the Frenchman of our day, for 
any but a very liberal monarchy, still less is he fitted for a 
republic, lacking, as he does, almost every requisite that 
goes to constitute a Republican. Brave among the bravest, 
he wants civil courage, and falters before the threat of a 
mob-leader, whom he would leap to encounter upon a barri- 
cade, though fire and steel opposed him at every point. He 
enters a popular assembly — a club, perhaps, — clothed with 
the best reasoning which human wisdom can devise, but he 
trusts mainly to the sword for securing to them the success 
they deserve. If in a minority, he will not yield to the 
majority, because, in his mind, sharp arms are a legitimate 
substitute for dull arguments. If out of work, or if advance- 
ment come slowly, or if self-love be wounded, drowning all 
patriotism in the dirty puddle of his own petty interests, he 
tears up society by the roots. Impatient by nature, if the 
seed he has sown spring not up at once as "flush as May,'' 



218 



he treads it under foot in anger, or fretfully plucks it from 
its place, in a vain search for the cause of his disappoint- 
ment. 

I have lately had submitted to my inspection an official 
account of the events of February 24th, contained in an extra 
number of the Moniteur, struck oif for the special use of 
Government, and, on reading it, I was surprised to see with 
what facility a few demagogues, backed by a handful of 
obstreperous students and workmen, set the grandson of 
Louis Philippe aside. It was these same demagogues, and 
not the population of Paris, much less the voice of the French 
people, that nominated the Provisional Government, all of 
whose acts, by the by, the National Assembly is now daily 
employed in remedying or reversing ; and it was they who, 
drunk with the fumes of new authority and uninstructed in 
the ways of State, backed by their rabble followers, heaped 
disgrace upon France the 15th of May, and during the four 
days of June covered her with mourning and shame. But 
then the scene shifted. Their imbecility or iniquity — it 
matters not which — being too oppressive for longer endurance, 
when the glare of civil war flashed over half the capital, they 
dropped from their high places, like pheasants from a perch, 
on snuffing the brimstone of their destroyers. In the dire 
extremity of the moment a man, who better knew how to 
wield the steel than to manage State affairs — a Republican 
by heritage, by practice and by suffering, and therefore the 
fitter instrument wherewith to combat pseudo-Republicans, 
was called upon to undo the mischief which they had done, 
and the Assembly, filled with distrust of them, one and all, 
and unconvinced, as well it might be, that a Republic was the 
one thing needful for France, clung to him in its hour of 
peril, as children to a protecting guardian, and still clings to 
him and his fifty thousand men of war beneath or within the 



219 

walls of Paris, as if in his person they beheld their only 
saviour and in his camp their only ark of safety. 
Paris, August 16, 1848. 



LETTER XVII. 

One great truth yet to be learned in Europe is, that Gov- 
ernment, like the Sabbath, was made for man, and not man 
for Government. Since recorded history began, few have 
been the instances in which rulers have ceded to the ruled, 
except on compulsion, any of those inalienable rights which 
neither negligence, nor statute nor lapse of time, can ever 
annihilate. Long and bloody has been the struggle between 
the usurpers and the champions of those precious preroga- 
tives which, taken collectively, constitute the political exis- 
tence of the individual. But the day has at length fully 
dawned when kings, like other mortals, are held accountable 
for their acts by the people themselves. When their thrones 
are regarded as a vain pageant, and their authority " by the 
grace of God " an idle fiction. Whatever good, however* 
may eventually come out of this crisis in human affairs, incal- 
culable present evil has sprung from it on every side. For, 
honest and moderate as are nine-tenths of the liberals through- 
out Europe, the remaining tenth is so extreme in its opinions 
and so unscrupulous in its actions, that, to say nothing of the 
disgrace and wrong thereby wrought to the cause and friend3 
of constitutional freedom, it daily increases the many obsta- 
cles which stand between it and its legitimate objects. 

The assassination of the Arch-Bishop of Paris, of Prince 
Lichnowsky at Frankfort, of Count Latour at Vienna, of 
Count Lembourg at Pesth, and of M. de Rossi at Rome, 



220 

added to the attempted murder of the Duke of Modena, and 
the senseless and ruffian-like contempt for the Father of 
Catholic Christendom, are all the handi-work of red republi- 
cans and ultra democrats. But these are not the only or 
the greatest criminals; the greatest are those bad governors 
who, by folly aud iniquity, have driven such men to courses 
so ruinous to themselves and to the interests they profess to 
serve. 

The republican cause is unhappily made the scape-goat of 
all these sins, and many a year must pass before it can be 
cleansed from their polluting effects. Not even in France is 
there likely to be found any exception from this lasting con- 
tamination — France, which is constant to nothing, where 
there are no fixed ideas on government, where common sense 
so little abounds, where the idol of to-day is stigmatized to- 
morrow, and where the name of an adventurer, surrounded 
by a halo borrowed from a great man's glory, outweighs in 
the esteem of the multitude a long life's service. It is the 
common people who are revolutionists in our century. In 
the last it was the middle classes. The latter found much to 
destroy, and tares and wheat were rooted up together. The 
former, whose griefs are for the most part those inseparable 
from a highly artificial state of society, make persons and 
personal policies their watchwords of insurrection, and would 
fain turn France into a fallow ground, on which Communism 
and Socialism can carry out their quixotic experiments. In 
the act of destruction both orders of men have shown them- 
selves adepts by turn, but in re-construction failures most signal 
have followed the best efforts of both from the innate defects 
of French character to which I have above alluded. 

Everything which presents itself to my view or to my re- 
collection convinces me that the opinion I ventured to give on 
a former occasion respecting the probability of France's return- 



221 



ing for a season to a monarcliial form of government was not 
a hasty opinion. It is strengthened on considering the highly 
conservative character of the National Assembly, although 
the product of universal suffrage, operated upon by the inflam- 
matory circulars of the arch-radical, Ledru Rollin. And it 
is confirmed by the reports of the latest elections, by which it 
appears that out of seven candidates returned four are Legit- 
imists, two Orleanists, and only one Republican. This would 
doubtless be a subject of lamentation to every lover of popu- 
lar liberty and of the human race, were it not that the 
French people are incapable of self-government at present 
from their extreme ignorance, were it not that of the thirty- 
five millions of inhabitants there are sixteen millions who can 
neither read nor write, and were it not a fact, made plainer 
and plainer every day, that the Republic of last February was 
a juggle from the beginning, a premature creation unsuited to 
the actual state of things, and therefore, in the common in- 
terest of all parties, to be got rid of, as soon as it can be, 
without further bloodshed. 
Paris, Dec. 9, 1848. 



LETTER XVIII. 

France and French Government are often judged with too 
little indulgence by those who have been brought up under 
English and American rule, or, to say the least, with a sever- 
ity not sufficiently tempered by experience. Discontent and 
inconstancy are laid to the charge of Frenchmen, when the 
blame should rather be cast on their institutions, and the per- 
version of them. For many years the internal administra- 



222 



tion of affairs in this country has been conducted on princi- 
ples, directly the reverse of what would be considered wise or 
safe by the constituents of a well-organized representative 
government, on either side of the Atlantic. And not the 
least mischievous of these principles is that which has re- 
sulted in the centralization of all power within the walls of 
the capital, whereby the Provinces have been kept, as it were, 
in leading strings, their administrative faculties unemployed, 
and their self-dependence undeveloped. 

In England and the United States, whether in state, county 
or township, men are accustomed to think and act for them- 
selves, and even when they pin their faith to that of a party, 
they cannot fail to imbibe some faint notion respecting the 
mechanism of government, and to acquire some sense of per- 
sonal responsibility and importance. But not so has it hith- 
erto been in France, where has always been wanting that 
practical political training, penetrating every quarter, how- 
ever remote, which alone is calculated to fit a population for 
the enjoyment and rational exercise of a constitutional free- 
dom. And this has come of the hard necessity of referring 
every enterprise, for advisement and approbation, to some 
ministerial department at Paris, previously to its adoption ; 
whence have arisen innumerable instances, in which a tardy 
consent has found the sinews of the boldest projectors un- 
strung, or an indefinite delay has brought ruin and its train to 
all concerned. Whereas in the other two countries men- 
tioned, let some local object of interest call forth the attention 
of the neighborhood, and whether a church is to be built, a 
bridge constructed, or a road repaired, it is the inhabitants 
who commence, conduct and conclude the affair, and it is they 
alone on whom depend the rapidity and excellence of the 
execution. If money, in the shape of taxes, is taken from 
their earnings, they see the product of it in solid masonry, in 



223 



spanning arches, or in crooked ways made straight and rough 
places smooth ; which is certainly more satisfactory than to 
feel forever an untiring, relentless and invisible hand, extend- 
ing from the centre to the furthest extremity of the land, 
and eternally fumbling in their pockets for every stray penny, 
which goes, when found, they know not where, evanishing as 
mysteriously as the fawning smile of a candidate the day after 
an election. 

Now, if throughout the several Departments of France, 
the people had been long habituated to a local and subsidiary 
administration of public business ; if they themselves had al- 
ways been permitted to choose their prefects and other subor- 
dinate officers, instead of having placed over them individu- 
als who were entirely strangers to the wants and capacities of 
their communities ; if, in a word, they had been systemati- 
cally taught a sturdy reliance on self, can it be imagined that 
they would have met the exigencies of 1880 and 1848 in 
such a spirit of helpless imbecility as they did, and that they 
would have so passively and subserviently submitted to the 
frantic and polluted emissions of the capital ? They had been 
so accustomed to grunt and sweat under a weary provincial 
life, that when these things came, they received them, as a 
matter of course, much in the same way as a fine lady of a lit- 
tle country town does the last fashions from Paris. But better 
fortune, it is to be hoped, is in store for those whose unequal 
lot has hitherto doomed them to pay the tax-gatherer, ask no 
questions and be still. For unless the unwholesome, unnat- 
ural reign of centralization be soon terminated here, and un- 
less the whole country alike be brought to a condition, where- 
in, as in the human body, each several member shall have a 
fair chance of performing its proper functions, we need look 
for little permanent progress, less stability in principles and 
no greatness, — except there happen to be in store a military 
despotism, which will mock at all details. 



224 

During the next two years, affairs will probably go on 
much as they do now — commerce flourishing, the national 
debt increasing, parties quarrelling, and hardly two persons 
thinking alike. Butihen, in 1852, before which time the Con- 
stitution cannot be legally changed* there will come a fearful 
moment for the Republic and its institutions. 

Paris, Jan. 9, 1850. 



LETTER XIX. 

p 

Public Securities here have risen greatly, and are still 
rising ; true it is too that commerce, external and internal, is 
flourishing, and for the last twelve months has brought in 
immense profits ; but the fact is not less indisputable, that the 
present state of national affairs is universally regarded as 
only provisional, and that many well informed persons openly 
declare their most serious conviction of the approach of 
another bloody crisis. 

The Rentes are constantly increasing in market value, 
because people, weary of keeping their capital unemployed, 
and unwilling to invest it in houses which are half tenantless, 
or in lands which are overburdened with taxes, in fear and 
trembling do as their neighbors do, and trust their all to an 
inscription in the Great Book. Commerce thrives very much 
as a once promising youth, stunted by accident, shoots sud- 
denly up to an unnatural tallness, on a partial recovery from a 
violent fit of illness. And that the present is only a transi- 
tory state of being, is manifested by the pertinacity with 
which the most remarkable individuals of the country, refrain, 
since the Revolution, from accepting place in the ministry ; 
by the backwardness of commercial men to engage in any 



225 



except very limited undertakings ; and by the general econ- 
omy which is visible in every household, where circumstances 
allow it to be practised. But as for the violent issue, about 
which some persons are so apprehensive, I must avow that, 
for the present at least, I can discern neither motives nor 
means sufficiently^powerful and practical to produce it. 

The Republic, as you know, was a surprise, not only for 
the nation at large, but not less so for those by whose agency 
it came into existence. But the Republic was accepted, and, 
such as it is, it must be endured till the question, What can 
be substituted for it ? is more practically resolvable than at 
the present moment. 

When Louis Bonaparte was raised to the Presidency of 
France by the vote of six millions, he might, it is believed 
in some quarters entitled to great respect, have secured to 
himself, almost as easily, a title more sounding in name than 
that which he bears, and a tenure of office as durable as his 
own life. When the events of the 29th of December and of 
the loth of June ai'rived, the game, though somewhat rnore 
difficult, was, it is thought, still in his hand. But opportunity 
after opportunity went by, and in no way did he violate, or 
attempt in manner patent to violate, the Constitution. Why 
then you may ask, do people mistrust him, and why, while 
they regard him as a mere stop-gap, do they stand in fear of 
him ? Simply, it may be answered, because of the difficult 
position in which he is placed. In a little while his term of 
office will expire, and by the Constitution he is not imme- 
diately re-eligible. In order to render him a legitimate can- 
didate for the ensuing Presidency, that instrument must be 
altered ; and in order to alter it, a Convention Assembly 
must be elected by the people, which by the terms of the 
instrument itself cannot be done before the spring of 1852. 
Now, it is a very dubious matter whether the present Na- 
10 



226 



tional Assembly will ever consent to any such Convention 
being called together, or, should the measure be decided on, 
whether the object proposed could be attained. For it must 
be borne in mind that there are other persons besides Bona- 
parte, without whose co-operation he can do nothing, who 
would like to be chief magistrate of their -country as well as 
he ; and that, should they aid him to a re-election for ten 
years, which would be tantamount to a life interest, their own 
fates as subordinates they might forthwith consider as forever 
sealed. And is it to be supposed that men like Changarnier 
and Lamoriciere, all bursting with ambition, like Thiers and 
Odillon Barrot, each choke full of aspirations, will be con- 
tent to sit quietly down beneath the withering shadow of such 
a one as Bonaparte ! Here then is to be perceived no tri- 
fling cause of civic commotion ; and should the attempt to 
baffle the Emperor's nephew succeed, he is not, if I read him 
rightly, much predisposed to " crook the pregnant hinges of 
the knee," and passively submit. He who in the face of every 
probability, and in despite of sagest counsel, twice dared to 
beard the French King with arms in hand, is not very likely to 
quit a palace in possession, and a throne, it may be, in per- 
spective, to encounter, empty-handed, hungry creditors and 
remorseless bailiffs. He will first try gentle means, T doubt 
not, judging from the line of conduct till now pursued by him, 
but, let these fail, he is the last man in the world to shrink 
from using the most sovereign of all arguments, a strong will 
pointed with sharp steel. If left to himself, hard as it is to 
calculate on what the hero of Strasburg and Boulogne may 
or may not do, the chances are that he will do nothing to 
compromise his cause, till compelled to it by the progress of 
events. But, unhappily, there are those about him, self- 
yclept friends, who would, if they could, prematurely push 
him on to what might pi-ove his ruin. Not thirty days agp 



227 

such serious fears were entertained in most high quarters, of 
some senseless attempt, that, to my certain knowledge, certain 
leading individuals, than whom none occupy or deserve to 
occiijiy more exalted places in the world's esteem, found it 
necessary to hind themselves by contract to resist to the utmost 
all violence on the part of the President and his personal 
adherents. 

Unwelcome as was the Republic from the first moment of 
its advent, and unloved as it now is, what chance is there of 
its duration, may be naturally asked. It must be admitted 
that Frenchmen, their habits, their prejudices and their ante- 
cedents do not accord well with a popular form of govern- 
ment ; but it is also undeniable that they are every day 
becoming less and less fitted for living under a monarchy, 
unless it be a monarchy only in name. Yet as there must be 
something or other for them to bear allegiance to, it is clear 
that for the time being and perhaps for some years to come, 
Kings must yield precedence to Presidents, because no one 
Prince has at present power enough to seize the abandoned 
sceptre, because no one party has individual strength enough 
to contend against all the rest, and finally, because no one man 
has faith enough in himself to save the country from the 
moral paralysis under which it groans, or can sufficiently 
command the faith of others to make them his agents in the 
great work of salvation. 

France can never again be other than a democratic country, 
however her chief magistrate may be designated. Her in- 
habitants have drunk too deeply of the cup of Liberty, have 
too sensibly enjoyed the delights of voting, and are too 
keenly alive to their own innate strength, ever long to brook 
other than the most liberal and popular of governments, how- 
ever unfitted for it as yet they may be. The present Re- 
public may, and probably will, break down, owing either to 



228 



the unbridled passions of the ultraradicals, the unteachable 
conservatism of the old-fashioned Carlists, the distracted 
counsels of the self-serving Orleanists, or the suicidal indif- 
ference of the weary and half bankrupt bourgeoisie. The 
Reds may make another armed effort to regain the ascend- 
ancy, but they will miserably fail, for all parties, however 
opposed to each other on other points, cannot, in the cause of 
self-preservation, do otherwise than join heart and hand in 
the defence of order. The Legitimists and Orleanists may 
stupidly refuse to be reconciled ; the honest Republicans 
may obstinately shut their eyes to the possibility of a King 
and a Court ; and he who now occupies the State saddle may, 
with the English Eclipse owner in his first race, believe, if 
not exclaim, " the winning-post past, and the rest nowhere ! " 
But however long this state of suspense may endure, and 
however certain it is that nothing stable save a Republic can 
eventually grow out of all these things, almost equally sure 
may you be that there will be one more bout at Monarchy 
here, and that the Duke of Bordeaux, who is wisely waiting 
till he is wanted, till the national appetite for change is glut- 
ted, till fatigue has done its perfect work, and in a word, till 
the remembrance of olden times and brighter days returns 
armed with the force of absence, that he alone will turn out 
to be, what he was proclaimed at his birth, the " Gift of God." 
Paris, February 4, 1850. 



229 



LETTER XX. 

Since tfce 2d of December, 1851, there have been several 
narratives published in Paris, which profess to give accurate 
accounts of the events of that day, and of the circumstances 
which immediately led to them. In all these narratives 
facts are distorted, or, if facts were too patent to be turned 
awry, deeds of a most questionable nature are boldly attribu- 
ted to the unparalleled wisdom and unequalled courage of 
their sole author, the Prince Louis Napoleon. In regard to 
some particulars, however, the authors of these panegyrics 
preserve, with one accord, a most politic silence. Yet, it 
seems to me, that such things should not be allowed to pass 
wholly unrecorded, when one is attempting to measure out 
equal justice to all parties, as it is my purpose now to do. 

These partisan writers say nothing of personal abuse and 
derisive terms applied by a brutal soldiery to men whose 
world-wide fame is justly their country's boast, nor of the 
unholy means, the bribes, the " potations pottle deep " and the 
base appeals to a gangrened vanity, by which that soldiery 
was for the occasion brutalized. They make no mention of 
" bare fists " shaken, and looks of menace cast, by their goaler 
sentinels at the Representatives of National Sovereignty, 
impounded, like vagrant cattle, within the bars of a damp 
court-yard on the Quai d' Orsay for two long hours of a 
winter's day, nor of the indignities attending their subsequent 
incarceration. No allusion is made by them to cellular 
vans — vehicles constructed for the conveyance of the worst 
criminals and only one degree less hateful than the loath- 
some hearse, nor of the suffering from cold and hunger 
endured by those who, already chilled by the wintry hand of 
age, were transported by such means to their fortress prison. 



230 

Nevertheless, these things happened, and the testimony on 
which I rely in saying so is sure. 

It would be lost time to recapitulate the history of the last 
few years in France to any one who has paid even ordinary 
attention to the rapid succession of events which have there 
been exhibited, to the alternate wonder and terror of Europe. 
To her own children has been conveyed, within a space less 
than the average of human life, a mournful lesson which 
blindness itself may read, and to the inhabitants of other 
lands, blessed with more stable governments, a fearful warn- 
ing which folly alone will neglect. Equally needless would 
it be to recount the continual strife — not the least odious 
feature in that history, which, since December of 1848, was 
ever on the increase between the President of the Republic 
and the National Assembly, between the Right and the Left 
of that Body, and among the several factions into which those 
two hostile corps were divided. But not the less is it to be 
lamented by every lover of constitutional freedom that, owing 
to distrust and discord in their own ranks, the advocates of 
order allowed their antagonists of the Mountain, whom they 
far outnumbered, to throw the deciding weight of their votes 
now into this scale and now into that, sometimes on the 
impulse of caprice, but oftener in obedience to a fixed prin- 
ciple of demolition, from which there was little deviation. 
Mutual and bitter, however, as was the enmity that reigned 
among the different portions of the Assembly, the aversion 
which subsisted in full force between the Chief of the State 
and his nominal co-equal in power, showed itself most decid- 
edly and uniformly on the part of the former, as facts and 
dates will fully prove. 

In May, 1850, the President, through his Ministry, took 
an active share in framing and enacting a law, the object of 
which was an arbitrary restriction of the exercise of uni- 



231 

versal suffrage, that had solemnly been conceded to the 
Nation by the Constitution of 1848. This law, which, among 
other qualifications of an elector, required a residence of 
three years at least in the same Commune, disfranchised by 
this exaction alone, a vast number of respectable persons, 
whose way of life compelled them to an occasional change of 
domicile, according as the demand for labor shifted from place 
to place. So that, instead of a few hundred thousand vaga- 
bonds being excluded from the privilege of voting, which 
was the intent and expectation of its authors, two or three 
millions of honest citizens were by its operation deprived of 
their legal l'ights. Seeing then that the new law, that of 
May 31st, as it was termed, on being brought to the test of 
trial in a few isolated instances, neither fulfilled the end for 
which it was intended, nor satisfied any but the ultra-con- 
servative classes, the Assembly very wisely resolved to alter 
it. For which purpose, previously to the adjournment of 
that body in August, 1851, certain steps were taken in com- 
mittee towards a change in the principle of municipal elec- 
tions, which had it answered the exigence of the case, would, 
by a single legislative act, have been forthwith applied to every 
other sort of election. During the three months of prorogation 
the consideration of the measure in question was necessarily 
suspended, but it would doubtless have been resumed in good 
season and conducted to a favorable termination, had not the 
President, hoping to undermine his adversaries' ground and 
secure to himself the lion's share of popular affection, pro- 
claimed in a message to the Representatives .his determina- 
tion, so far as in him lay, to restore to the people at once and 
without stint, the universal vote, — the very thing, indeed, of 
which they had been deprived principally through his agency. 
The Message itself was in form uncourteous, and in substance 
far from being acceptable to many members who, in the face 



232 

of their recorded sentiments of the preceding year, were 
thus suddenly called upon, as it were, to stultify themselves. 
Nevertheless, such was the general unwillingness to thwart, 
or so great was the fear of offending, its author, that he was 
suffered to carry off all the 'fruits of victory, through the 
countenance of a minority, which, hy the conversion of two 
voices alone, would have been turned into a majority. 

This seemingly adverse decision appeared to me at the 
time an exceedingly unfortunate one, because it afforded the 
defeated party an opportunity, he ardently coveted, to assume 
the character of victim in behalf of the people, whose favor he 
was bent on winning at the expense of his parliamentary an- 
tagonists. The proposition, as one proceeding from the Head 
of the State, should, in my opinion, have been entertained 
with all respect, and at a later day, every ground of quarrel 
having been in the mean time avoided, any amendments which 
the subject required might have been easily grafted upon it. 
Unhappily it was abruptly repudiated, and yet the insignifi- 
cant majority by which this was done, added to the impor- 
tance of the minority which, as already said, was acting in a 
great measure against its own decidedly pronounced convic- 
tions, showed how heartily disposed to conciliation was the 
mass of the Assembly. And that this was in fact the prevail- 
ing spirit of that Body manifestly appeared in the immense, 
though legally insufficient, numbers, which in the month of 
August had formally declared that the Constitution ought to 
be amended, for the well-understood purpose of legalizing the 
re-election of Prince Louis Napoleon, without awaiting the 
interval prescribed by that instrument. Moreover, soon after 
the prorogation there were meetings throughout the Depart- 
ments of the Councils General, composed in part of Repre- 
sentatives, whose opinions doubtless greatly swayed their col- 
leagues, and, with the same object avowedly in view, the 



233 



nearly unanimous decision of these Councils was that the 
Constitution stood in need of a fundamental reform. 

On the 4th of November, Ihe Assembly came together 
again in Paris, and the President's insulting communication 
having been disposed of, as already described, the Quaestors' 
motion, so called, was brought forward, and in a manner "to 
lead one to suppose that its framers meant it to be a still more 
practical and defiant response to the Chief Magistrate than 
that he had just received. In all respects it was ill-con- 
ditioned. The time for presenting it, a moment of profound 
irritation, was badly chosen, its tone was at once weak and 
menacing, and the management of it from beginning to end 
was puerile and clumsy. It theoretically demanded what 
could not practically be conceded, and lost the substance, in 
grasping at the exaggerated shadow, of a right. Had it be- 
come a law, the Assembly, under the loose designation of "the 
armed force " might have taken every soldier in the country 
under its own control, and left the President without a senti- 
nel at his door ; and " all the authorities," civil as well as mil- 
itary, would have been subject, under certain circumstances, 
to the orders of a single quaestor, if the terms of the luckless 
Bill had been literally fulfilled.* It was in reality a provo- 
cation to hostilities, and almost a declaration of war against 
a man who had all the material force on his side, and who 
took no pains to conceal his readiness and anxiety to use it. 
And at the same time, under the sorry pretext of regulating 
the exercise of a power indisputably conferred by the Consti- 
tution on the Assembly, it allowed, by its timorous policy, that 



* Proposition depost'e avec demande d'urgence. Art. 1, § 3. A cet effet, 
il (le President de l'Assembli'-e Nationale) a le droit de requerir la force ar- 
mee et tmtits les autorites dont il juge le concours necessaire. 

Art. 2. Le President (de l'Assemblee Nationale) peut d^leguerson droit 
de requisition aux questeurs, ou a I'und'eux. 

10* 



234 



very power to be first questioned, then denied, and at last 
annulled. 

Of the existence of this power no one can doubt who has 
read the French Constitution of 1848, which says : " The Na- 
tional Assembly determines the amount of military force es- 
tablished for its safety, and disposes of the same,"* and still 
less can any one who has read the recorded events of last 
November and December deny that a prompt use of such 
power would have saved, at least for a while, the Body to 
which it belonged. For if, instead of the Quaestors' proposi- 
tion, a sufficient number of troops of the line had been 
instantly collected, in accordance with a right so plainly 
stated, and if a competent general had been appointed to 
command them, there is every reason to believe that the Covp 
d' Etat of December 2d, would have been prevented. Be- 
cause, previously to that date there existed no influence with 
the army in any quarter strong enough to induce one portion 
of it to make war in cold blood upon their fellows, whether at 
the beck of an aspiring demagogue or at the instigation of a 
knot of mercenary intriguers. Besides, it should have been 
foreseen that the Quaestors' blow, made upas it was of three 
parts bravado and one part coward, being once fairly dealt, 
whatever fate befell it, was sure to return with redoubled 
force upon the authors and abettors of it. 

But the affair was soon decided, and consequence quickly 
followed cause. The Mountain, which a few days before, 
through hatred to the President, had effected a majority of 
two voices against him, now, stupidly fancying themselves the 
masters and arbiters of the situation, flew round to his side 
and defeated the men of order, never suspecting, probably, in 

* Constitution de la R/'publique Francaise, 1848. Art. 32, § 5. L'As- 
scmbk'e Nationale determine le lieu de ses stances. Elle fixe 1 'importance 
dos forces nnilitairs ^tablies pour sa surety, et elle en disposed. 



235 



their senseless animosity, that by so doing they were involv- 
ing themselves and their adversaries in one common ruin. 
Many timid persons, also, such as abound in all popularly 
elected bodies, joined what appeared to be the stronger side, 
not through affection for it, but in dread of violence and in 
trembling solicitude for a peaceful solution to a frightful em- 
barrassment. But our present concern is the result of the 
vote — a majority for the government of more than one hun- 
dred, and the inference to be drawn from it — that the pre- 
dominant wish of the Assembly was to maintain amicable re- 
lations with the Chief of the executive power. 

A vote, however, in the contrary sense, I am well assured, 
would only have accelerated the events of December, for two 
of the four persons who, as it afterwards appeared, were in 
the full confidence of Louis Napoleon, openly expressed their 
discontent at a victory, somewhat unexpected, or at least their 
preparedness for every event. To say no more, that they 
were annoyed at being balked of an opportunity for immedi- 
ate action, is the interpretation that has since been put, not 
without reason, upon words, which at the time were reported 
to me by witnesses worthy of all credence. 

A friend of mine, on entering the Elysee, just after the re- 
sult of the discussion had been published, having addressed a 
well-meant compliment to M. de Persigny on his party's suc- 
cess, that gentleman, so far from receiving it as would have 
done a man guiltless of any covert design, peevishly answer- 
ed, " So much the worse ! " thereby indicating most emphati- 
cally his chagrin at the loss of an occasion to execute some 
preconcerted scheme. And an intimate of M. de Morny's 
told me that, having rallied his Elysian friend on the morn- 
ing subsequent to the debate, upon the absence of his name 
from the list of voters, jocosely attributing it to some excuse 
frail as the Qmestors' and not less fair, the embryo minister 



236 



replied, that at the hour indicated he was in the President's 
cabinet, whither he had driven full speed, because, having 
seen M. Baze, the quaestor, and General Changarnier in close 
conference, and being doubtful of consequences, he wished to 
communicate his apprehensions to the Prince, who was re- 
solved, he knew, in case of defeat, to re-enforce unavailing 
arguments with a few choice regiments of soldiers. Through- 
out, too, the whole of the momentous day, horses, saddled and 
bridled, were in the court of the palace, ready to be mouuted 
at a moment's notice. 

All the circumstances which immediately preceded the 2d 
of December demonstrate that the Assembly, though irrita- 
ble, illogical, discordant and fitful by turns, was, in its reluc- 
tance to provoke a dangerous foe, timorous, credulous, and 
long-suffering, almost to the point of folly ; and that opposed 
to such impotency was the silent, cold-blooded fatalism of one 
who scrupled at no violence, and hesitated at no illegality. 
Even the reception and treatment of the Bill on the responsi- 
bility of the President and other officers of State, sent by 
the Council to the Assembly, evinced the general spirit of 
forbearance which actuated the Representatives, who, it 
should be remarked in passing, were legally bound to give 
that document a hearing. And the committee, to whom it 
was confided, by modifying its conditions, and deferring the 
discussion of it, faithfully expressed the desire of their prin- 
cipals to appease rather than to exasperate a rival power. 

Yet, in the face of probability, and without a shadow of 
proof, the mendacious cry of conspiracy was raised, as has 
often been done before in that country, for the purpose of 
screening from merited ignominy traitorous projects which 
admit of no substantial palliation. But men of veracity who, 
if a conspiracy had existed, must have been either of, or 
cognizant of, it, on account of their avowed political princi- 



237 



pies and peculiarly important relations, have informed me that 
the tale was only a groundless fabrication, invented expressly 
for the occasion. 

Supposing, however, that the design had been seriously 
entertained to seize and imprison the Chief Magistrate of 
France, and had even been carried into execution, the evil 
consequences would have eventually fallen, not on the in- 
tended victim, but on the short-sighted inventors of it. For, 
blunted as is the moral sense of the common people by 
rioting in revolutions, they never would have looked calmly 
on while the nephew of the Emperor was gratuitously in- 
sulted. Or, if they had, inasmuch as before the 2d of Decem- 
ber no offence worthy of punishment could be laid to his 
charge, had he, with the unerring instinct of a patriot's love, 
submitted for the moment to the indignity aimed at him, 
rather than jeopard by civil conflict his own integrity and 
the public weal, not only would he have won renown purer 
and more lasting than that of him whose name he wears, 
but on himself would he have centered the hopes of the 
intelligent and the virtuous, who now stand aloof, lamenting 
their country's freedom, but with faith in its resurrection, nor 
would he have forfeited the more vulgar support of the 
masses, by whose fickle sufferance at present he lives from 
day to day. Distraction and discord in the enemy's camp 
would have opened his prison doors as soon as they had closed 
upon him, and no competitor could for an instant have barred 
his way to power. 

Indeed, I know not where such a competitor, under the 
circumstances supposed, was to have been found. Could the 
Monarchists have agreed on one — they wdio never were of 
accord even when fortune seemed to promise a blessing on 
their union ? Could the Republicans have supplied one, 
broken in hopes and thinned in numbers as they had been ? 



Could the Socialists and Communists, branded as they were 
by the rest of the community with a Cain-like mark? Or, 
setting all party distinctions aside, could the Assembly have 
suitably responded to the exigencies of the country in her 
hour of need ? The Assembly ! The glory of that wond- 
rous medley of wisdom and folly, of prudence and passion, 
of patriotism and intrigue, had long since departed, its clever 
but babbling President had worked his appointed mischief, its 
chiefs had demoralized their followers, and those followers 
themselves had become little better than a disorganized mob. 
And was this a body of men, trembling, as it were, upon the 
verge of dissolution, and morally attenuated almost to imbe- 
cility, was this a body likely to compass and imagine treason 
against a Power already swelled beyond all natural propor- 
tions ? Or, was there within its limits sufficient unity of will 
and purpose discreetly to meet the consecpiences that treason 
of such a sort, if successful, must have brought in its train ? 
No one, not even among those who once belonged to it, will 
have the hardihood to answer by an affirmative, but all, 
whose information is on a level with a moderate share of 
fairness and intelligence, will agree in this, that of the two 
Depositories of popular Sovereignty one was ambitious beyond 
measure, the other weak beyond bounds ; and that the former, 
seeing the people agape in fear and amazement at eternal 
bickerings above their comprehension, and the military, with 
outstretched arms, ready in the impatience of ignorance to 
embrace the first bold comer, yielded to a temptation he had 
longed for, seized an occasion he had worked for, and, heed- 
less of every engagement, grasped the glittering prize whose 
brilliancy had lighted him through the darkest passages of an 
eventful life. 

The Prince President's admirers would fain persuade us 
that the covp d' etat was a stroke of the highest policy most 



239 



marvellously executed. But it will be found on examina- 
tion that his plans admitted of no possible failure, except 
through the impossible treachery of the few who were his 
confidents, whose lives and fortunes were dependent upon his 
own. For in his hands were the garrison of the city and 
the treasury of the nation, neither officers nor soldiers knew 
any rallying name save his, and all or nearly all of them 
were but too ready to close their itching palms upon the 
lavish largesses he widely flung among the high and low, to 
quicken, if need were, the desire for vengeance that had 
rankled in the heart of the military ever since the disgraces 
inflicted upon them in 1848 by the populace of Paris. The 
Assembly, moreover, by its own suicidal act was unarmed, 
and the people by their listlessness were without the means 
of defence. What great risk, then, did it involve, and what 
prodigious skill did it require, to seize some scores of men 
during the helpless hours of rest and darkness, even if among 
them happened to be found renowned warriors, eminent 
statesmen and the representatives of some of the most dis- 
tinguished names in France ? Wherein was exhibited the 
consummate strategy so much vaunted? Was it in surround- 
ing the National Printing Office with an armed guard, while 
its captive occupants, deprived of their natural slumbers and 
menaced with instant death on every side in case of attempted 
evasion,* were forced to cover sheet after sheet with the 
announcement of a portentous treason ? Or, was it in the 
fiery haste with which the proclamations of that treason were 
posted in every conspicuous spot, where the deluded victims 
of it might read the news of their enslavement? Or, was 
it in barring out from their hall of meeting the members of 

* Histoire du 2 D(?cembre. P. Mayer, pp. 50.51, Les armes furcnt cbargoes 
en silence, les soldats apposes aux portes, aux fenetres, dans les corridors et 
les ateliers, et la consigue donnee: Elle ^tait simple: Fusilier tout ce qui 
tenterait de sortir ou de s'approcher d'une fenetre. 



240 



the Assembly, and driving a portion of them, not figuratively 
but literally, at the point of the bayonet till more than one 
of them felt the sharp steel piercing their loins ? * Or, 
finally, was it in the slaughtering a host, which will never be 
numbered in this world, of individuals, whose only offence 
was a venial curiosity, or ignorance unwarned by the friendly 
sentinel, as in the " days of June," an inattention to munici- 
pal regulations stuck here and there at distant intervals, or, 
perchance, a natural insensibility to danger? Why, brute 
force and ordinary cunning would have sufficed to do all this. 
But, unfortunately, to back this sort of force and cunning, 
experience in conspiracy was not wanting — experience 
which, gained at Strasburg and Boulogne, and matured 
within the castle of Ham, greatly diminished whatever risk 
there was of a third failure. It could not, however, dimin- 
ish the amount of responsibility, nor the expense at which that 
responsibility was incurred. I refer not now to the nullifica- 
tion of a recorded pledge, nor to the waste of blood, (accidental 
perhaps), which the rain-soaked earth long refused to drink. 
With these things, I, a stranger, have nothing to do. To his 
own conconscience alone must the President stand or fall, 
since his countrymen, through weariness of the past and dread 
of the future, have absolved him by millions of votes — if, in- 
deed, valid absolution can come from hands trembling under 
menace, direct or indirect, f But there is another and more 
heinous offence against society, against constitutional liberty, 



* Three gent'emen were thus wounded. My authority is M. de , one 

of the most honorable and best known men in France, who was of the 
company. 

f Tne vote given last December for President ought not to be regarded as 
free. It was one of terror fur s>'me, (if necessity for others. The choice 
lay between Louis Napoleon and nothing. Men, willing to purchase tran- 
quillity at every price, preferred him to nothing; while republicans, social- 
ists and communists, watched by the police, voted Yes ! with open ballot, 
under the threat of being sent to join their friends in exile. 



241 



against the spirit of the nineteenth century, against humanity 
itself, and it is this for which the self-constituted master of 
France is arraigned before the tribunal of public opinion 
throughout the civilized world, — a tribunal, thank Heaven ! 
that can be neither silenced, nor shackled nor banished by 
the decree of any despot. This it is, too, for which he will be 
condemned by the righteous judgment of his own generation, 
and by the inexorable verdict of a retributive posterity. 

In speaking thus I do not ask for myself, nor do I recog- 
nise in any foreigner, immunity for intermeddling in French 
affairs, but I do claim for every man who pretends to the 
dignity of man, the privilege of protesting whenever and 
wherever he sees the rights of his race invaded, and the 
march of liberty impeded, by unruly ambition of every kind. 

But granting that Louis Napoleon's apologists are not 
altogether wrong in attributing to him prodigious shrewdness 
and cleverness, in extricating himself from a position which 
they assume to have been peculiarly difficult, still my opinion 
is, that, setting aside the criminality of the deed, no one 
deserving the name of statesman could have been guilty of 
the political blunder he committed on the 2d of December. 
For seldom has a transitory representative of power had a 
surer and safer course before him than he had previously to 
that day. The Assembly, as we have seen, and the upper 
classes, as is known, being unable to agree on any other candi- 
date or on any definite line of policy, were more than willing 
to accept him ; the Bourgeoisie, in exaggerated dread of 
Socialism, were warmly in his favor; and the work-people, 
obtusely impassioned for a name, were intent on having none 
but a Bonaparte to rule over them. All, therefore, that he 
had to do was quietly to await events and allow others, who 
had a better right, to make void the Constitution in his 
behalf, instead of violating it himself. And then, if men of 



242 

blood and misrule, under the banner of Socialism or of any 
other dangerous fallacy, had ventured to attack the interests 
and relations of society, he, as the champion and constitutional 
defender of order, would have been held harmless by uni- 
versal consent, whatever consequences might have followed 
the anticipated outbreak of 1852. But he rashly dared to 
turn responsibility from its natural channels, and its swelling 
flood will some day end by choking him. So far from better- 
ing his condition, he has changed it, morally if not materially, 
for the worse. The intelligent and educated portions of the 
community are on the alert for an hour of vengeance, when 
vengeance untempered by mercy will be taken upon the 
offender. The middle orders, shocked at the contemptuous 
disregard of law and justice lately displayed in punishment 
before conviction and confiscation without judgment, will 
never lift so much as a finger to save him. And the com- 
mon people finding, as they must before long, that their last 
state is no better than their first, will, according to their 
wonted instinct, eagerly throttle the prey which others, more 
skilful than themselves, shall have brought to a stand. 

We sometimes hear of persons who are the slaves of one 
exaggerated idea, that has been developed to deformity by 
wilful indulgence. Among such, Prince Louis Napoleon 
holds no ordinary rank. He is, or effects to be, a fatalist. 
He fancies, or would fain make others believe, that, like 
inspired men of old, he has a mission to perform, that to him 
belongs the accomplishment of the work which his famous 
relative left unfinished, and that, in short, the salvation of 
France is to be wrought out solely by his ability to "close the 
era of revolutions."* And it is, perhaps, his obstinate perse- 
verance in this notion — the offspring of an unstable judg- 

* Appel au Peuple Frauqais par le President, le 2 D^cembre, 1851. Cette 
mission cousiato a former 1'ere des revolutions. * * * * 



243 



ment and a distrust of God's Providence, that has been in 
part the cause of the success which crowned his third and 
last assault upon legitimate authority. Influenced by it, he 
heeds not the counsel of the limited number of the wise and 
prudent who can be induced to approach him, and hearkens 
only to a herd of sycophants whose delight is in administer- 
ing to his own propensities. 

Accident, too, has curiously contributed, in one instance, 
at least, to strengthen this absurd idea within a mind pre- 
disposed, it may be, by inheritance, to superstition. The 
instance referred to I am tempted to relate, because my 
informant, once an intimate in the family of the ex-Queen 
Hortense, is a foreigner of rank, whose honorable character 
and independent position forbid the suspicion that he is capa- 
ble of fabricating an idle tale. 

" Is it not strange," said her Majesty to this gentleman 
one day, "that my son Louis has the piesentiment that 
some time or # another he will become," (not Emperor or King 
of France, but) " the President of a French Republic ? " 

And who can tell if the promise, thus made to himself by 
the youthful dreamer, was not in a considerable measure the 
parent of the position which the man in his maturity now 
occupies ? 

That with such remarkable happiness at foretelling events, 
he has not yet abandoned the habit of divination, is no matter 
of wonder; and I was not, therefore, surprised at hearing, 
a short time since, of an oracular declaration of his, made on 
one of those rare occasions when he opens his mouth, in the 
following Avords : — "My life presents four distinct phases. 
The first comprised the follies of youth, such as the expe- 
ditions against Strasburg and Boulogne: they served to 
make me known. The second was my Presidency. The 
third is my Dictatorship. The fourth, and last, will be my 



244 

fall beneath the assassin's blow." And the conviction that, 
like his grandam, the Empress, he is the child of destiny, 
that like his affected prototype, the first Napoleon, he has his 
own familiar star, will, without doubt, eventually lead him to 
perdition, by persuading him that the suggestions of an 
ungovernable will are the inspirations of a high intelligence. 

Then, besides this fatuity of character in the individual, if 
we search within the nation he aspires to govern, whether 
there be aught which by its inherent qualities must militate 
against his permanence of power, we shall find that the in- 
strument he hugs with such rapture as the means of achiev- 
ing his Utopian schemes, the very instrument by aid of which 
he cut his way to hollow greatness — the Centralization Sys- 
tem, which in its day served well its turn, but which now 
has become the country's bane, will, like a two-edged sword, 
its shaft worn out, inevitably destroy the hand that uses it. 

Under this system the people have so long been treated 
like children, that, like children, they feel and acknowledge a 
dependence on supreme authority which makes them desper- 
ately helpless whenever an emergency arises. Hence their 
inaptitude to withstand any sudden attack, as has been shown 
by the successful surprises they have undergone in the course 
of the last twenty-five years, and hence too is it that a liberal 
constitutional policy is the exception, and an alternation be- 
tween despotism and anarchy the rule of their existence. 

But, besides this moral degeneracy, a certain dangerous 
habit of mind has sprung from the same source, which has 
caused the downfall of more than one occupant of a palace, 
and will, if I mistake not, arrest yet another in the midst of 
his triumph. A senseless and excessive reliance on Govern- 
ment teaches all orders of men to hold that Government re- 
sponsible for every misfortune of every sort, however beyond 
human foresight and precaution the event may have been. 



245 



Thus derangement in commerce, failure in manufactures, dis- 
order in finance, even a bad harvest, a scanty vintage, an 
overflow of waters, everything of a calamitous nature is ruth- 
lessly cast at the door of the ruling power. Never having 
been accustomed to manage even the comparatively insignifi- 
cant concerns of their own municipalities, except in passive 
compliance with instructions from Paris, and being conse- 
quently incompetent to comprehend, and much more to repair, 
the simplest portion of a complicated political machinery, the 
mass of the nation, yielding to momentary discontent, welcome 
the first occasion which offers for tearing a government to 
pieces, in the silly hope of substituting a new one, without 
spot or blemish, in its place. And there is not a doubt in 
my mind that the many never neglected opportunities for in- 
dulging this their methodical madness during the last three- 
quarters of a century, have contributed more to their mater- 
ial and moral deterioration than would have the loss of the 
same number of pitched battles upon fields as disastrous as 
that of Waterloo. 

We all know that the original component parts of the 
French nation differed from each other as much as the Eng- 
lish from the Scotch, and that a Norman, even in our days, no 
more resembles a Toulousian than does a Highlander a deni- 
zen of London. But it is a melancholy fact that, under the 
paralyzing effects of a uniform subserviency to an unscrupu 
lous policy of centralization, the descendants of the several 
tribes which have peopled France, whether of German, Ro- 
man or Celtic origin, all alike agree in their utter incapacity 
to improve their political and social condition proportionally 
to the occasions enjoyed by them. 

Charles X., for example, so far as any benefit derived from 
]jim was concerned, might as well have perished in his first 

Re. Of sovereigns, it need not be said, he was among the 



246 



weakest. He bad none of the hardy virility and stubborn- 
ness, however intermittant, which distinguished the first king 
of that name in England. Moreover, the times were all in 
favor of experimenting on the former. His reign and char- 
acter, therefore, were peculiarly suited to be used in a legal 
and constitutional manner for regulating the bearings of dif- 
ferent classes and for settling the bounds of Parliamentary 
rights. Yet no wise advantage was taken of all this. But a 
feverish impatience — a conspicuous flaw in the mental or- 
ganization of his countrymen — rudely rejected him as a thing 
of no value, and took up with his successor, who for eighteen 
years gave them practical illustration of the difference be- 
tween a legitimate Negative and an illegitimate Positive. 

Inadequate, however, as that successor proved himself to 
be in directing the movement of the age, even he might have 
been converted to an instrument of much permanent good, if 
the Opposition had assailed him only on broad constitutional 
principles, instead of tormenting him with personal provoca- 
tions, which may humiliate, but can never reform, an antago- 
nist, especially if that antagonist happen to be placed high 
above other men. But, in his turn, he also went the way of 
all royal and imperial flesh of French lineage, and, a fair field 
for inventing a new form of government offering, a Republic 
followed. And now, likewise, the Republic, which lives but 
in name, must be numbered among the things that have been, 
notwithstanding that less than four years ago it was servilely 
recognized wherever proclaimed, unblushingly subscribed to 
by every party, and cordially accepted, as a matter of course, 
by all who held, or who hoped to hold, office at the public 
expense, — and their name in France, it is unnecessary to 
add, is " Legion." 

But neither from this, any more than from the " Annoint- 
ed " of the land, was that profit drawn which an adroit man- 



247 

agement of the strength and weakness of each must have 
produced, if those who by right and duty were the guardians 
of the nation's welfare, had exercised even an ordinary degree 
of wisdom and firmness. 

Now, judging from history, which is but a self-repeater, 
and from facts within our own knowledge, to which its pages 
will some day bear record, one is strongly tempted to specu- 
late, however unprofitably, on the probable duration and pos- 
sible uses of that resuscitation of the Imperial Regime which 
is just beginning to assume a consistency and shape. 

The Prince at its head may rest at ease for the present, I 
presume, so great is the irritability of French nerves on the 
score of social danger, and so uncordial are all political par- 
ties towards each other, notwithstanding the' daily authentic 
stories that are told of a fusion between two of them. He 
may go on his way rejoicing, so long as the credulous and 
timid can be kept in awe of the phantom Socialism, and while 
the foremost men of State remain coldly indifferent to that 
unity of patriotic purpose, for lack of which their country's 
happiness is withering, and they themselves are wasting in 
obscurity. He need apprehend no serious check till the 
avowed enemies of order crouch beneath, or elude, the hand 
that has so sorely stricken them. But this they have already 
done or are now doing, if on no other account, because of 
their numerical weakness. For, though I do not with some 
contend that they were always few and powerless, there are 
good grounds for believing that their numbers have been ex- 
aggerated and their forces overrated by calculating fraud. 
But armed resistance being now at an end, the real difficulty 
of the task Louis Napoleon has voluntarily set himself be- 
gins, and that too without taking into account his foreign 
policy. For, among other reasons, the total suppression of 
overt violence will, by allaying the apprehensions of the com- 



248 



inunity, greatly diminish his importance, and consequently the 
factitious portion of his strength. 

It lias been computed by trustworthy and sagacious men, 
well placed for observation, tbat there are, or rather were, a 
few months since, in France, about a million and a half of 
individuals infested more or less with the doctrines of Social- 
ism, and acting systematically in opposition to law and vest- 
ed rights. From these dupes of cunning demagogues and 
victims of bad government, whatever be their number at 
present, no serious catastrophe need be feared while an armed 
force of sufficient magnitude, ever on the alert, is kept ready 
to confront them at every point. But beyond this material 
and barbarous state of things, which cannot always last with- 
out relaxation, there is somewhat to be considered that should 
alarm even the boldest. There are ideas, false in the main, 
but mixed with truth, which even under the stern compression 
of absolute power will go on germinating and spreading in 
secret, unless supplanted by others of a healthier nature. 
They are ideas which, in common with those proceeding from 
a purer source, cannot be eradicated either by fire or steel. 
Besides, let the weight of external pressure be removed, if 
only for a moment, from the faculty of asserting them by 
word or deed, and the uncured humor will rush to the surface 
with tenfold malice. Less obnoxious remedies, therefore, 
than those hitherto applied it behoves the present Usurper to 
devise, or France must remain, as she now is, in battle array, 
at a ruinous cost, ending in. revolution, beneath which he will 
be sure to sink, weighed down by the personal responsibility 
that has crushed so many of his predecessors. 

The most obvious and indispensable of these remedies is to 
scatter the darkness of ignorance, which covers the land, by 
commencing the moral and religious instruction of the lower 
classes, and by increasing the means provided for their intel- 



249 

lectual improvement. For it is a sad truth that the French 
heart has been allowed to lie fallow, while the little pains be- 
stowed upon the poorer children of the soil have been chiefly 
directed to the cultivation of the understanding. This is the 
reason, for the otherwise inexplicable fact, that crime most 
abounds in those Departments where the greatest number of 
inhabitants have been taught to read and write. But who 
can wonder at morality and religion being of such secondary 
concern in France, when he is told that the government has 
hitherto provided so niggardly for even the intellectual neces- 
sities of the humble, that to two-thirds of the population 
printed characters are a profound mystery, and that the art 
of committing thought to paper is an acquisition beyond their 
proudest hopes ? 

Has he, in whom all power is now vested, sufficient virtue 
and intelligence to supply with true knowledge, if only in its 
elements, the wants of those whose ignorance can easily be 
thrown as a stumbling-block in the way of every one who, 
from selfish or higher motives, would elevate the condition of 
his country ? I fear not. 

Powerful, however, as would be the general education of 
the people to cure the evils of Socialism, it could not half - 
accomplish its object, unless accompanied by another remedy, 
the design and result of which would be to supply the willing 
laborer with sufficiency of work at a fair recompense, with 
plenty of food at a moderate price, and, in a word, with the 
common comforts of a decent existence, free from the cruel 
anxieties of an unprovided future. 

But to attain such important ends, the only effectual instru- 
ment to be employed is, unfortunately, such that most persons 
in France, though otherwise well informed, shrink from the 
bare mention of it, as school-boys do from the first strange 
look of the simplest problem in geometry. And yet a Free 
11 



250 



Trade Policy, the means I would indicate, cautiously but 
firmly introduced, must, I am persuaded, be adopted in that 
country before she can be brought to a commercial and social 
level with other nations in which it now flourishes, and before, 
too, she can become a permanent resting place for any ruler 
whatever. For it is that alone which can increase her rev- 
enues so as to prevent enormous deficits, such as annually oc- 
cur, which can diminish the amount of taxes, lately become 
almost insupportable, which can provide new markets or en- 
large old ones, where her produce shall not be sold at a ruin- 
ous sacrifice, as has recently happened year after year, and 
which can create many legitimate wants, with the attendant 
ability to gratify them, whereby the common people will be 
humanized, and their hearts, now festering amid wild theories 
with envy, hatred and all uncharitableness, will be sown 
broadcast with wiser and better thoughts. 

Now, as no one hitherto occupying the highest post in 
France, ever made a single important advance in this the 
only true conservative direction, and as it is too certain that 
no legislative body, however constituted, will of itself take the 
initiative in a measure so fraught with peril to the imagination 
of a majority of the population, to Louis Napoleon is offered 
the opportunity and privilege of conferring on his country- 
men a boon which may, if granted, redeem him in the opinion of 
posterity from a portion of the odium heaped upon him by 
his contemporaries. He cannot, with any show of reason, 
plead ignorance on a subject that has occupied so much of 
late the public mind, nor want of further information after 
the many hours he is said to have devoted to the study of po- 
litical economy while in exile and in prison. Neither ought 
he, I apprehend, so to insult his own understanding as to af- 
fect an insensibility to the force of argument in favor of the 
change proposed, which nothing but the absence of knowledge 



251 



or deficiency of sense can withstand. If, then, with no con- 
current Power to hamper or circumvent him, he, like those 
who have gone before him, continue to tax the many for the 
benefit of the few, by keeping the ports of France more than 
half closed through the operation of a high tariff, on him, as 
it did on them, will fall that same responsibility before de- 
scribed, with all its fatal consequences, which neither decree, 
nor sabre nor bayonet can ward off or remedy. 

I have contented myself with noting only one or two of 
those causes within the country, which, if neglected, must in- 
evitably lead the Prince President to his fall as soon as they 
shall have had time to make themselves thoroughly felt. But 
should he, in a moment of desperation at finding the ground sud- 
denly crumble beneath him, be tempted to plunge his country 
into a continental war, hoping thereby to defer the evil day, his 
doom will only be the more quickly decided. For if, on the 
one hand, he leave the Capital to head the army in person, 
prompted by the genius for war which he fancies to be a por- 
tion of his imperial heritage, unless he prove himself a 
greater General than the Emperor, Paris will close her gates 
against his return, as she once shut her ears to the appeal of 
that bold, bad man, when misfortune had stripped him of his 
power. Or if, on the other, he remain within her walls while 
generals, even of his own choice, fight his battles, victory and 
defeat will be equally ruinous to him, — victory, because it 
will give him a master in some fortunate captain, — defeat, 
because the disgrace will fall on him and on him alone. 

But the penalty, alas ! will not all be his. And let France 
beware, or the fate which once threatened her in the Allied 
Councils of 1814, and which has befallen more than one 
State in ancient and modern times, may be her lot. Let her 
look well to herself, or the spirit of the age, which is not war- 
like but commercial, may thrust her from among nations of 



252 



the first rank, as a common nuisance and an enemy to the 
world's peace, by rending her asunder, so that her disjointed 
parts shall never come together again.* 
Paris, Feb. 14, 1852. 



LETTER XXI. 

You are too much accustomed in America to regard the 
affairs of foreign countries in a purely commercial point of 
view, or, what is worse, as matters of mere curiosity. This 
appears to me a mistake, and especially since the advent 
of Louis Napoleon to supreme power. In my opinion, 
there was less danger of a general war in Europe at any mo- 
ment during the last four years, notwithstanding the many 
fearful outbreaks that took place and the ferocious sup- 
pressions that attended them, than there is likely to be within 
an equal space of time immediately before us. 

There is, for the punishment of crowned heads, a sort of 
chronic plague pervading the world, producing much, though 
not unalloyed, good, which has had more than one crisis, and 
may be approaching another at an hour when it is least dread- 
ed. This " King's evil" is a hankering after liberty, which 
must sooner or later be satisfied. When once you have killed 
a man, there is an" end of him ; but it is not so easy to dis- 
pose of the creature of thought. The question then becomes 
one of conversion by main force against conviction, and the 



*In all which has been said by mo respecting the Prince President, I wish 
it to be most distinctly understood that I have spoken of him 011I3' as a pub- 
lic man. and of his political character alone. From sources beyond question, 
and from individuals perfectly truthful, who are well acquainted with Louis 
Napoleon, I know him to be kind and gentle in all the private relations of 
life, obliging and generous to those around him, temperate too, notwith- 
standing slanderous reports, and strictly honorable. 



253 



story is not so soon told. This notion of liberty, vague it is 
true, possesses the European mind to the utter exclusion of 
all possibility of passive submission and indefinite endurance. 
And it must necessarily become more defined, enlarged and 
disseminated, because, on the one hand, of its very nature, 
and on the other, of the constantly increasing intercourse be- 
tween nations which are most blessed with political rights and 
those which have yet to attain them. New and newly- 
strengthened relations also with the American Continent will 
tend to the same result. Promises, too, in high quarters, will 
not so easily again delude the multitud?. Promises of an 
extended freedom, sometimes though not always, given under 
the pressure of circumstances, have been shamelessly broken, 
and yet these same promises, or even better, must be re- 
newed and redeemed, or no throne on this side of the Atlan- 
tic will stand secure. For the memory of a people is as 
tenacious as the fold of the constrictor; it never relaxes ; and 
a nation never forgives. 

In times long gone by, the ignorant and priest-ridden 
masses were controlled with facility, because matter in the 
long run can always be made subservient to mind. But in 
our day so much intelligence of one sort or another is scat- 
tered among the inferior orders of society, or among those 
who, without belonging to the highest class themselves, direct 
the former and influence the latter, that the ruler and the 
ruled, the oppressor and the oppressed, have something like 
a fair field whereon to fight. And is it to be credited by 
any intelligent observer, that, in that fight, millions of sen- 
tient beings, after having tasted the delights of liberty and 
self-government, however sparingly, after having enjoyed a 
glimpse of constitutional freedom, however undiscerningly, 
and after having realized a material existence less brutal than 
that they were born to, will cowardly return to their first 



254 



estate of degradation, like the hcart-bi'oken African to the 
hold of the slave-ship, when the hour of recreation is over, or 
like the sluggish swine to his stye when the whip of the hog- 
herd announces that his repast in the forest is ended ? 

The present Potentate of France, thus far, has proved 
himself the cleverest of demagogues. He perfectly compre- 
hends the terror which is inspired by the ill regulated and 
exaggerated, but holy, aspirations of the people, and makes a 
skilful use of it in his own behoof. His power is founded on 
a popular favor, or a show of it, before which the other Powers 
of Europe recoil with trembling. What a tribute, however in- 
voluntary, is this to Democracy in its true sense ! But let that 
favor, or the image of it, waver or wane, and he will turn his 
back on the people and throw himself into the embraces of the 
Princes of the North. And who will insure the continu- 
ance of what, in this country above all others, is proverbially 
fickle ? True, he is the hero of the day, and this very day he 
is entering Paris an emperor in all things, save the decree of 
the Senate, which is ready, and the votes of the people, which 
are prepared. No one can compete with him. The heir of the 
Bourbons loves his ease, and will wait till he is called for, 
while no representative of Orleanism could get an answer 
were he to call ever so loudly. The Republican is nowhere, 
and the Socialist is banned. But by what means does he 
keep up the fire of an enthusiasm which he lighted on the 2d 
of December ? By giving crosses and ribbons right hand and 
left, by granting whatever priests and parasites demand, and 
by bribing in all quarters with promises which a power un- 
limited and a treasury uncontrolled, will enable him to fulfil 
for yet a season to come. But when the novelty of the 
thing is worn off, when his budget of baubles is exhausted 
and when, though the cry shall still be, Give ! Give ! he will 
have nothing more to give, what then can he find to keep up 



255 



the excitement upon which he is now, while I write, riding 
triumphantly ? His countrymen are greedy of change, rave- 
nous for glory, impatient of personal inferiority, and are 
always writhing under a traditional disgrace upon the great- 
est battle-field of modern times. War, then, must come, or the 
embryo Emperor must go. 
Paris, Oct. 16, 1852. 



LETTER XXII. 

In a country like ours, and under a government chosen by 
the people, the best means perhaps of arriving at truth is to 
give ear to all men. And there are moments, it seems to me, 
when it is the duty of all men to speak, their thoughts as well 
as to listen. Will you then permit one, who has heedfully 
listened until now, to say a few words on the subject which 
lies heavily at the heart of every American who loves his 
country ? 

Having resided long in foreign lands, I have learned to 
regard that country — that ivhole country as my country, and 
to merge in its common being the existence of each par- 
ticular State ; and it therefore sorely grieves me when I find 
that the " value of the Union " is daily becoming more and 
more a matter of calculation. The Value of the Union ! 
Well chosen words, which it behoves every man who takes 
them on his lips seriously to consider, and conscientiously to 
weigh, before he give to any " thought its act." 

The Value of the Union ! What, then ! have we fallen so 
low, have we so degenerated from our sires, that we must 
needs set about calculating the value of that for which they 
lived and died, — that for which they sacrificed scruples and 
prejudices, — that for which their daily prayer was raised 



256 



and on which their dying blessing fell ? Are we so glutted 
with the prosperity which union has brought us that we long 
to taste of its reverse ? Are we already wearied of its fruits, 
counting our rank and station among the foremost nations of 
the earth, the respect of friends and that dread which united 
strength inspires where no love is, as vapid nullities and worn- 
out baubles? Is our vast and varied Continent, teeming with 
every produce which can add life to life, — is it, like that of 
Europe, destined to be parcelled out, till internal broils and 
feuds shall be its only tokens of vitality ? Is our commerce, 
boundless as the seas and oceans to which it gives no rest, re- 
joicing under a banner, the sight of which afar from home 
makes the heart thrill with gladness, — is this Avorld-wide — 
this Avorld-envied commerce to be torn piecemeal, some unre- 
spected flag marking each paltry nationality ? In a word, 
are we bent on defeating the only fair trial that self-govern- 
ment by man has ever had ? Forbid it, Heaven ! should be 
the cry of every one who believes that humanity was never 
intended by its great Creator to stand still or to retrograde. 
Yet such is the natural consequence of every step which 
leads to the pass of Separation, to the dislocation of a 
thousand ties, and to the annihilation of that magic charm of 
union which in the world's eye adds greatness to our greatness. 
Why should any party insist on what is, or appears to 
be, its extreme right ? It was not in this way that the au- 
thors of our Constitution and their worthy followers fashioned 
and confirmed it. If those who set so lightly by the Union 
could pass a few years in the Old "World, and see as I have 
seen, how, for lack of union, great things become small and 
small things perish, — how strength turns to weakness and 
the realities of well-being dwindle away ; if they could wit- 
ness the high esteem and admiring honor in which the United 
States are held, and the envy with which our united condi- 



257 



tion is regarded by those who live from day to day by chance's 
suffrance, in hourly apprehension of beholding society rent 
asunder, property despoiled and nationality extinguished ; if 
they could see all this with their own proper eyes, then might 
they indeed calculate the value of the Union, and not without 
advantage to themselves and others. 

But there are those who exclaim, " Let the Union be de- 
stroyed rather than that slavery should be extended beyond 
its present bounds ! " — while others, in the same spirit of 
chastened moderation, proclaim their hatred and contempt for 
this same Union, if for its preservation they are to be prohib- 
ited from going where they will with their human chattels. 
Both parties, in their eagerness for immediate conquest, seem 
too willing to sacrifice future interest to present passion ; for 
they must know that a peaceful solution of the difficulties 
which have lately covered the land with shame and sadness 
cannot be hastened either by insulting inuendoes, craftily dealt 
forth in the Senate Chamber, or by the natural but deplorable 
consequences of such inuendoes, personal violence. Let them 
remember that life itseff is but a compromise, that precipita- 
tion breeds derangement, and that extremes lead to disso- 
lution. 

Such is the condition of all human associations, and so 
false is the estate of man, that communities and individuals 
are frequently forced into a course of conduct which, if the 
circle of their own free will were less circumscribed, they 
would avoid ; but which, owing to acts of their predecessors, 
they are compelled to adopt. Now the institution of slavery 
is generally admitted, especially by the slave owner, to be an 
evil, and an evil, above all others, to himself. But it is only 
in its political and economical bearing that the inhabitant of a 
free State has anything to do with it. Its moral tendency is 
none of his business, unless he can refer to a higher authority 



258 

than that of the Founder of our Religion, who, so far from 
putting the slaveholder in the same category with the mur- 
derer, the adulturer and the thief, took the institution as he 
found it, and was content to regulate, thereby sanctioning, the 
relation between the slave and his master. 

But suppose there were any moral blame fairly imputable to 
slavery as it now exists in the Southern States, the slave-owner 
of our day ought to be held harmless, wholly undeserving, as he 
is, of the black and loathsome hues with which the popular ar- 
tist of the day has begrimed his presentment, and of the irrita- 
ting abuse inflicted on his character by certain public declaimers, 
emulous apparently of the notoriety of that same artist. If 
the institution of slavery be indeed such a crying sin, such an 
intolerable crime against morality and religion, as some aspi- 
ring politicians and unconscientious guardians of others' spirit- 
ual interests pretend that it is, let the stone of condemnation 
be cast, not at those who are the chief sufferers — the white 
inheritors of the horrible legacy — but at our own ancestors in 
New England and in Old England, at the slave importers of 
Massachusetts and of Rhode Island, of Bristol and of Liver- 
pool. Why, not many years ago, so notorious and admitted 
was the general guilt in this regard, that the famous actor 
Cook, on being hissed upon the stage of the last named place 
for some deed of disrespect, exclaimed with figurative, if not 
courteous, truthfulness, " Men of Liverpool, you dare to hiss 
me ! — me, who at the worst am guilty of but a venial folly ! 
You dare to hiss me, when there is not a stone in the pave- 
ment of your whole city which is not cemented with the blood 
and sweat of a negro ! " And no one was bold enough to 
gainsay his words. 

How the Kansas ti'oubles are to terminate, whether in cur- 
tailing or extending the " Institution," Heaven alone can tell ; 
but this we know, that whichever party sent the first man to 



259 



try by force the question of slavery or non-slavery within the 
limits of that territory, is responsible to God and to posterity 
for all the evil which has flowed, and may yet flow from such 
a diabolical act. On whatever side, however, victory shall 
declare itself in the terrible conflict — terrible because par- 
taking so much of the nature of civil, mixed up with religious, 
warfare — I trust it will not be where a defeat would endan- 
ger the Union of the States. Compared in value to this 
Union, three and a half millions of negroes, aye, and of white 
men too, seem to me of little worth. Yet it cannot long en- 
dure if the quixotic folly of the last few years be persisted in 
by those self-constituted interpreters of the Constitution, who, 
a law unto themselves, believe that they are wiser than their 
fathers, and hope to accomplish by indirect means what the 
sagest of a past generation failed to effect when the course 
was clear before them. I am quite aware that the " non-ex- 
tension of slavery " is the party cry of such persons, but no 
one doubts, I presume, that their real object is to root out sla- 
very, at every risk and cost, from the places where the Consti- 
tution is its protector and the law its guarantee. 

If the extension of slavery can be prevented by legitimate 
means, and at a cheaper price than the sacrifice of the Union, 
most men of conscience and understanding will gladly aid in 
the cause. And that the cause may prosper there are many 
reasons for hope and more for prayer. But, according to my 
poor way of thinking, insults and injuries on one side, Avhich 
indicate a lack of moral sense, and blows and stripes on the 
other, which prove no moral courage, had better be kept in 
reserve, till means more gentle and more worthy of the chris- 
tian gentleman have been tried and been found of no avail. 

Boston, Dec. 4, 185 G. 










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